Filed: Microsoft .NET Developer Tools
The CodePlex Team mentioned the other day that they now support Mercurial as a version control system in addition to TFS. It surprises me that the CodePlex team chose Mercurial because:
- It's not from Microsoft ( and the CodePlex team is )
- It isn't Git ( which I hear about more than Mercurial )
- Never used it ( and I like to learn new technologies )
Myself and development teams I have been a part of have been using Subversion for years and it has never caused me pain or any friction that I can remember. This has pretty much caused me to ignore Git and other distributed version control systems as well as TFS.
However, the fact that the CodePlex Team mentioned they are now using Mercurial as an alternative to TFS, in spite of the things I mentioned above, has got to get you wondering if you are missing something :)
So, I installed TortoiseHg on Windows 7 and have been using Mercurial for almost a week on a new and smaller client project. Although I can't say that anything has clicked yet as to the value of distributed version control systems, using Mercurial has been just as painless and easy to use as SVN. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mercurial might be faster, but I can't say that with a fact as I am just getting started with it on a new Mercurial host provider and a newer ( and currently smaller ) project. Time will tell on that.
Of course, to my happiness, JetBrains TeamCity also supports Mercurial. In fact it must be destiny as their screen shot has them choosing Mercurial :)
And last, which is also fantastic, you can get a free online book that teaches you Mercurial which I have very much enjoyed: Mercurial: The Definitive Guide.
Let me say that if you are a developer new to version control or having pain with your current version control system, I think it is worthwhile to try out Mercurial. It is painless to install and use, and the free online book is a very easy and good read. Since CodePlex now supports it for hosting OSS Projects, you can create a free project and learn Mercurial for absolutely nothing.
Hope this helps.
David Hayden