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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Version Control
  4. Version Control System
  5. BitKeeper vs Git

BitKeeper vs Git

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Git
Git
Stacks343.6K
Followers184.2K
Votes6.6K
GitHub Stars57.1K
Forks26.9K
BitKeeper
BitKeeper
Stacks3
Followers18
Votes0

BitKeeper vs Git: What are the differences?

BitKeeper vs Git

BitKeeper and Git are both version control systems, used to track changes to files and collaborate on software development projects. However, there are several key differences between the two:

  1. Repository Structure: In BitKeeper, there is a central repository that contains the entire history of the project. Each team member can clone the repository and make changes locally before pushing them back to the central repository. On the other hand, Git uses a distributed repository model, where each team member has a complete copy of the repository with its full history. This allows for more flexibility and independence in terms of collaboration.

  2. Conflict Resolution: When multiple team members make changes to the same file in BitKeeper, conflicts can arise. BitKeeper offers a feature called "automatic conflict resolution" which attempts to merge conflicting changes automatically. Git, however, requires manual conflict resolution. It provides tools to help identify and resolve conflicts, but it ultimately relies on the developer to make the necessary decisions.

  3. Branching Model: BitKeeper follows a more traditional branching model, where there is a main branch (typically called "master") and branches are created for specific features or bug fixes. Git, on the other hand, is known for its powerful branching capabilities. It allows for lightweight branching and encourages the use of branches for different tasks, such as feature development, bug fixing, and experimentation. This flexibility enables more efficient parallel development and easier code management.

  4. Performance: Git is known for its superior performance compared to BitKeeper, especially when dealing with large repositories or performing operations like branching and merging. Git is optimized for speed and efficiency, utilizing techniques such as data compression and delta encoding to minimize the size of the repository and reduce network traffic. These optimizations make Git faster and more responsive in most scenarios.

  5. Open Source: BitKeeper is a proprietary version control system with a commercial license. Its source code is not publicly available, and the software is maintained and controlled by a single company. In contrast, Git is an open-source project, developed collaboratively by a community of contributors. It is freely available and can be customized or extended to fit specific needs. The open-source nature of Git fosters innovation and allows for greater transparency and community involvement.

  6. Integration and Ecosystem: Git has a vast ecosystem of tools, services, and integrations built around it. There are numerous third-party services (like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket) that provide hosting and collaboration features specifically designed for Git repositories. Many development tools and platforms have native support for Git, making it easy to integrate Git into existing workflows. While BitKeeper also has its own ecosystem, it is not as extensive or widely adopted as Git's.

In summary, BitKeeper and Git differ in terms of their repository structure, conflict resolution approach, branching model, performance, licensing, and ecosystem. Git offers a distributed repository model, requires manual conflict resolution, has a powerful branching model, excels in performance, is open-source, and has a vast ecosystem.

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Advice on Git, BitKeeper

Kamaldeep
Kamaldeep

CEO at Zhoustify Agency

Nov 13, 2020

Decided

SVN is much simpler than git for the simple stuff (checking in files and updating them when everyone's online), and much more complex than git for the complicated stuff (branching and merging). Or put another way, git's learning curve is steep up front, and then increases moderately as you do weird things; SVN's learning curve is very shallow up front and then increases rapidly.

If you're storing large files, if you're not branching, if you're not storing source code, and if your team is happy with SVN and the workflow you have, I'd say you should stay on SVN.

If you're writing source code with a relatively modern development practice (developers doing local builds and tests, pre-commit code reviews, preferably automated testing, preferably some amount of open-source code), you should move to git for two reasons: first, this style of working inherently requires frequent branching and merging, and second, your ability to interact with outside projects is easier if you're all comfortable with git instead of snapshotting the outside project into SVN.

83.3k views83.3k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Git
Git
BitKeeper
BitKeeper

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

BitKeeper is a fast, enterprise-ready, distributed SCM that scales up to very large projects and down to tiny ones.

-
Simple: An easy to use command line interface.;Scalable: Nested Repositories are submodules done right! Version control collections of repositories.;Flexible: Hybrid mode for binary files that uses a cloud of server for binaries instead of bloating the source repositories.;Accurate: Tracking of file operations like creates, deletes, and renames.;Safe: All file accesses validate checksums for integrity. All file writes include redundancy for error correction.;Dependable: Highly accurate auto-merge that uses the whole history to resolve conflicts. Most other systems use variations of diff3.;Discernable: Source annotations instantly available.;Fast: High performance and scales to very large repositories.;Free: Licensed under the Apache Version 2 license
Statistics
GitHub Stars
57.1K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
26.9K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
343.6K
Stacks
3
Followers
184.2K
Followers
18
Votes
6.6K
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 1429
    Distributed version control system
  • 1053
    Efficient branching and merging
  • 959
    Fast
  • 843
    Open source
  • 726
    Better than svn
Cons
  • 16
    Hard to learn
  • 11
    Inconsistent command line interface
  • 9
    Easy to lose uncommitted work
  • 8
    Worst documentation ever possibly made
  • 5
    Awful merge handling
No community feedback yet

What are some alternatives to Git, BitKeeper?

Mercurial

Mercurial

Mercurial is dedicated to speed and efficiency with a sane user interface. It is written in Python. Mercurial's implementation and data structures are designed to be fast. You can generate diffs between revisions, or jump back in time within seconds.

SVN (Subversion)

SVN (Subversion)

Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations.

Plastic SCM

Plastic SCM

Plastic SCM is a distributed version control designed for big projects. It excels on branching and merging, graphical user interfaces, and can also deal with large files and even file-locking (great for game devs). It includes "semantic" features like refactor detection to ease diffing complex refactors.

Pijul

Pijul

Pijul is a free and open source (AGPL 3) distributed version control system. Its distinctive feature is to be based on a sound theory of patches, which makes it easy to learn and use, and really distributed.

DVC

DVC

It is an open-source Version Control System for data science and machine learning projects. It is designed to handle large files, data sets, machine learning models, and metrics as well as code.

Magit

Magit

It is an interface to the version control system Git, implemented as an Emacs package. It aspires to be a complete Git porcelain. While we cannot (yet) claim that it wraps and improves upon each and every Git command, it is complete enough to allow even experienced Git users to perform almost all of their daily version control tasks directly from within Emacs. While many fine Git clients exist, only deserve to be called porcelains.

Replicate

Replicate

It lets you run machine learning models with a few lines of code, without needing to understand how machine learning works.

isomorphic-git

isomorphic-git

It is a pure JavaScript reimplementation of git that works in both Node.js and browser JavaScript environments. It can read and write to git repositories, fetch from and push to git remotes (such as GitHub), all without any native C++ module dependencies.

Gitless

Gitless

Gitless is an experiment to see what happens if you put a simple veneer on an app that changes the underlying concepts. Because Gitless is implemented on top of Git (could be considered what Git pros call a "porcelain" of Git), you can always fall back on Git.

Git Reflow

Git Reflow

Reflow automatically creates pull requests, ensures the code review is approved, and squash merges finished branches to master with a great commit message template.

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