Bazaar still below the radar when evaluating VCS tools

[Parth Malwankar]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Ali Sabil <ali.sabil at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:07 PM, Parth Malwankar
> <parth.malwankar at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:47 PM, Joke de Buhr <joke at seiken.de> wrote:
>>> On Friday 26 February 2010 07:47:00 Ben Finney wrote:
>>>> Joke de Buhr <joke at seiken.de> writes:
>>>> > It doesn't cover darcs, fossil, monotone and svk either.
>>>>
>>
>> ......
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Apart of that some things where bazaar is way better than git but aren't
>>> emphasized that much but may be especially important for businesses:
>>>  - central server workflow like svn (checkin, checkout)
>>>  - smart server via apache:
>>>    - support for virtual users (ldap, mysql, postgresql)
>>>    - fully encrypted (passwords and data)
>>>    - byzantine fault tolerance
>>>    - permissions on branch level (stacked branches)
>>>    - server hooks
>>>  - offline mode (unbind)
>>>  - loggerhead gui
>>>
>>> If a business would use git and requires full encryption they need to use git
>>> over webdav. Therefore they can't have server hooks and anyone with a valid
>>> password (stolen or hacked) can use any webdav client to delete the entire
>>> repository.
>>>
>>> With bazaar's smart server they could only add (junk) revisions but the
>>> original data would still be left intact and the original state could easily
>>> be restored by branching.
>>>
>>
>> I think I should add my reasons for switch to bzr to the list :-)
>>
>> I decided to move to a DVCS sometime during bzr 1.13, hg 1.1 and
>> git (1.??) timeframe. I needed to run my DVCS on a hosting server
>> on which I didn't have rights build and install software (C code). hg
>> didn't get pure python support till 1.2. git was definitely out. With bzr
>> I really liked that I could untar bzr in a folder and start using it by
>> just putting it in the path. Some other things I liked was support for
>> ftp, sftp (I was using both for some time before switching to ssh). I
>> also like bzr support for explicit file tracking. Though I worked mostly
>> on Linux, Windows being a first class citizen was important to me
>> as I sometimes need to work on Windows.
>>
>> A lot has changed since then (in all the big three DVCSes), but
>> some of these advantages like ftp, sftp support still hold (I think).
>> But somehow this doesn't seem to get highlighted in DVCS
>> discussions.
>>
>> The way I see it, the biggest reason I stick to bzr is because it is
>> flexible enough to cater to different needs (not just workflows
>> but also the constraints I had to deal with that time).
>> To add, bzr-svn, bzr-git and bzr-hg are really cool plugins.
>>
>
> I also believe bzr should work more its marketing. bzr is actually
> very powerful, but most people just don't know about its features.
> Maybe the bzr homepage should have a "activity oriented" section,
> explaining in which situation and how bzr can be used.
>

One thing I think that has hit bzr is the "its slow" tag. While this
is no longer the case this tag has stayed. Unfortunately there are
no recent speed benchmarks available. Most are quite old. Probably
users of bzr who have a blog could consider posting some benchmarks.

I see some space benchmarks at http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/Benchmarks
but there is nothing on performance. Maybe some performance benchmarks
can be put based on some well known medium to large size projects already
being handled by bzr. These need not necessarily be "bzr vs X" and could
be just bzr numbers. It would give people evaluating DVCSes a feel for bzr
performance.

Regards,
Parth