Some unscientific timing results (on the Python source tree)

[Paul Moore]

On 24/03/2008, David Cournapeau <david at ar.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp> wrote:
> For this specific comparison with mercurial, note that mercural does use
>  a "smart" server if you use http. If you want to compare the same thing
>  for network operations, you should use http-static for hg url:
>
>  http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/StaticHTTP
>
>  Or use bzr:// for bzr if comparing against hg clone http://

Good point, I'd forgotten that. But I repeat that I wasn't trying to
optimise, rather to "just use" what the people setting up the
repositories had suggested I use. (I don't even know if there's a bzr
smart server I have the ability - as a user without commit access - to
use).

>  I would say that network operation aside, the numbers you are giving
>  seem reasonable (that is, in my experience, for most operations, bzr
>  st/diff/commit/push/pull is around twice slower locally compared to
>  mercurial for medium repositories with a few thousand revisions; log is
>  much slower, but that's something which is being worked on I think ?).

I dispute "reasonable". "Unsurprising" or "expected", maybe. But
"reasonable" implies that you feel that people should not be looking
at Mercurial and Bazaar, and considering the speed difference as being
relevant in making a choice. As I said, I am personally very close to
a point where I would choose (and advocate) Mercurial over Bazaar for
any significantly-sized project, based on the speed difference. And if
the Bazaar team don't feel a need to improve speed further with "as
fast as other DVCSs" as a target, then that pushes me even closer to
deciding on Mercurial.

(Just a clarification - I've been toying with both Mercurial and
Bazaar for my personal work for a number of months now. Mercurial's
speed and flexibility are strong plus points for me, but overall I
prefer Bazaar's UI, feature set, and development pace. I've watched
Bazaar drive for more speed with great interest, as it would
immediately swing the decision for me if there were no speed
difference, but I'm no longer sure, now that packs have landed, if
there's the same drive for speed as there was in the run-up to 1.0).

Paul.