The document discusses distributed version control systems (DVCS) and their importance for developers, highlighting benefits such as disposable experimentation, offline accessibility, and flexible branching and merging. It compares popular DVCS options like Git and Mercurial, outlining their workflows and basic commands. The document emphasizes that DVCS empowers developers by giving them greater control over their work processes.

1. DistributedVersion
Control Systems
A Guide For The Perplexed

2. Thanks For Listening!
Slides: speakerdeck.com/alanstevens
Email/IM: alanstevens@gmail.com
Website: halanstevens.com
Twitter: @alanstevens

3. Why do
we need
VCS?

4. WhatVCS
have you
used?

5. What were the
benefits and
shortcomings of
those systems?

6. Why was
DVCS
created?

7. DVCS Options
Git: git-scm.com
Mercurial: mercurial.selenic.com
Bazaar: bazaar-vcs.org

8. What are the benefits ofVCS?
• Disposable Experimentation
• Each working copy effectively functions as a
remote backup
• Absolute control over the flow of local
changes
• Offline accessibility
• Stays out of the way
• Common operations are very fast
• Easier merge operations

9. “If I had to pick one word
to summarize the benefits
of DVCS, I’d say that word
is flexibility.”
Jeff Atwood

10. “you can branch any time
your organizational goals
require it, because merging
back will be a piece of cake.”
Joel Spolsky

11. It puts the
developer in
control.

12. What’s the workflow?

13. Mercurial
1. hg pull
2. {do work}
3. hg addremove
4. hg status
5. hg commit -m “foo”
6. hg pull
7. hg push
8. *repeat*
Git
1. git pull
2. {do work}
3. git add -A
4. git status
5. git commit -m “foo”
6. git pull
7. git push
8. *repeat*

14. That’s all you
need to know.

15. Here are two
neat ideas you
don’t need to
know.

16. Branch and Merge

17. Rebase!

18. Command Line vs. GUI

19. GitExtensions

20. Tortoise HG

21. SourceTree

22. GitHub for Windows

23. chocolatey.org

24. Hosting

27. Resources
hginit.com
think-like-a-git.net
help.github.com

28. “possibly the biggest
advance in software
development technology
in ... ten years”
Joel Spolsky