Start with git or svn?

Question

Now I make every time a zip file of all my files to create backups. But then I heard about svn und later, I read that git is "better" than svn. Can someone tell me why I should start learning?

Answer 1

Nothing is better than the other; both serve different needs. Subversion is a centralized system; Git. Subversion has one (and only one) server from which everyone reads and writes; in Git, each developer has his own repository, and the changes are separated by clicking and pulling between them.

If these are your personal files, I recommend using Git. There is no central server, so it’s easier to start. At the same time, Git has a steeper learning curve, and there are no really good graphical clients; on Windows, just like on * nix, you better use the command line version.

Answer 2

start with svn, this concept is simpler. then go to git, it will be much more powerful.

Answer 3

I personally recommend git - it's easy to work with, and you can tinker with things without affecting the copy on the server. You can easily disable the material, and the server is not even needed. If you need a server, there is github, or you can just use any server with SSH. I have never been able to understand the SVN workflow .. I would recommend reading http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/#svn/ .

Answer 4

By all means, use something. Just having .zip files asks for disaster.

If you've never used source control before, use SVN as it is easier to download for beginners. After you hang it (or work on a large team), you can switch to git or another distributed version control system.

Answer 5

Compared to creating zip code snapshot files, both git and svn (or Mercurial or even cvs) can significantly improve the coding workflow. I would advise you to read about the differences between the various philosophies of version control, and choose from them based on how you code and with whom you need to share (if any).

Answer 6

You can start with easygit , you will get svn simplicity with git power!

Answer 7

Learn both! Otherwise, you will never appreciate the benefits of a distributed system such as git.

Git will be a little more complicated, but in the long run you will appreciate a lot more on SVN, especially when branching. If you want to understand that you have to study with both. Sooner or later you will have to deal with both of them, as they are so popular.

I would start with git because it will probably be the one you will stick with. And the transition to svn will be easier than vice versa (you have to adapt to the limitations, and not learn new concepts).

Answer 8

Any option is much better than using zip backups. Personally, I think that if you are learning from scratch, I would just go with one of the popular distributed systems - Git or Mercurial. I have not used Mercurial, but the more I use Git, the more I am glad that I switched from SVN.

It used to be that you could only use Git on Windows with Cygwin, but these days it's great thanks to Msysgit . TortoiseGit is also a decent GUI interface, although as soon as you get comfortable you will find that you do most of the -line command anyway.

In addition, although Git has a slightly larger learning curve for it than SVN, its distributed nature makes it much easier to work with (just cd into the directory and type “git init” and you are “good to go”).

A ProGit Apress book is also available online and is a worthy link.

Answer 9

• If you plan to work anywhere in programming, chances are they will use SVN. You will need to study it at some point.
• At some point, I personally would recommend learning Mercurial , because it's bee knees. In my opinion, it combines the best parts of SVN with some good concepts from git.

Answer 10

If you're looking for something easily deployable, look at the fossil. It is a distributed version control system such as git, but consists of only one executable file. It provides a distributed wiki, ticket system, version control, all in a standalone web server.

Your repository will also have one file (sqlite database).

http://www.fossil-scm.org