Bazaar

Bug #109730
Comment #13

Comment 13 for bug 109730

Revision history for this message

WaywardGeek (waywardgeek) wrote on 2012-10-21:

#13

Git, Bazaar, and Mercurial all have real problems working the way corporations need them to. I recently tried Veracity at my workplace, specifically because the big three open-source VCS systems don't support work flows that my users require. Veracity was even harder to use than git, so my users switched back to their favorite system - clio. I can't even begin to tell you how terrible clio is, but there's simply no alternative that works for them. These guys aren't software developers, and allowing multiple people to edit the same file at the same time confuses and scares them. Mostly they edit binary files like Word docs and PDFs. They expect a file to be read-only until "checked out", at which point it's locked on the central server and made writable locally. When they "check in", it's unlocked on the server, and the local file is made read-only again. Clio has a really awful GUI, but it's very simple and that works for them. They can see what files are locked and by who trivially. They do not use command lines, so everything has to go through the GUI. They also don't want the GUI integrated into Windows Explorer - they want a traditional application window, and the main window pane needs to be the file tree, with some icons to show file lock state, who has the lock, and whether a new version is available.

I understand why the free software community is against file locking. That's fine, and so far as software development goes, I agree. However, please stop saying that file locking is not useful in a VCS. It may not be useful to you, but the majority of people out there using VCS aren't even programmers, and they'd rather chew their arm off than resolve a merge conflict. They simply don't understand branching and merging. They're not stupid. They're smart people who just happen to work in other jobs, like writers and analog chip designers. File locking is useful to them. Git, Bazaar, and Mercurial will likely continue to ignore these users, but the VCS that does cater to their needs will be the one that finally displaces Subversion in the workplace.

Git, Bazaar, and Mercurial all have real problems working the way corporations need them to.  I recently tried Veracity at my workplace, specifically because the big three open-source VCS systems don't support work flows that my users require.  Veracity was even harder to use than git, so my users switched back to their favorite system - clio.  I can't even begin to tell you how terrible clio is, but there's simply no alternative that works for them.  These guys aren't software developers, and allowing multiple people to edit the same file at the same time confuses and scares them.  Mostly they edit binary files like Word docs and PDFs.  They expect a file to be read-only until "checked out", at which point it's locked on the central server and made writable locally.  When they "check in", it's unlocked on the server, and the local file is made read-only again.  Clio has a really awful GUI, but it's very simple and that works for them.  They can see what files are locked and by who trivially.  They do not use command lines, so everything has to go through the GUI.  They also don't want the GUI integrated into Windows Explorer - they want a traditional application window, and the main window pane needs to be the file tree, with some icons to show file lock state, who has the lock, and whether a new version is available.

I understand why the free software community is against file locking.  That's fine, and so far as software development goes, I agree.  However, please stop saying that file locking is not useful in a VCS.  It may not be useful to you, but the majority of people out there using VCS aren't even programmers, and they'd rather chew their arm off than resolve a merge conflict.  They simply don't understand branching and merging.  They're not stupid.  They're smart people who just happen to work in other jobs, like writers and analog chip designers.  File locking is useful to them.  Git, Bazaar, and Mercurial will likely continue to ignore these users, but the VCS that does cater to their needs will be the one that finally displaces Subversion in the workplace.