Why do you want to switch to git? Agreed, I don't know either.
Any sort of branch/merge problems I encounter are mostly coders working on mutually incompatible versions of the base system. Not on a file level but rather on a protocol/format level
No mere source control system will be a hurdle of the same size as the hurdle of co-ordinating all the developers who broke each others preconditions.
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So a switch to git will be best for projects with extremely stable interfaces where the branch/merge mechanism is the most time consuming part. Think: linux kernel, stable protocol services.
But where developers have to collaborate while modifying a shared framework git makes little difference. Think: early stage GUI frontends, or server components which inter-depend on message formats which are evolving.
Git not being centralized helps a lot in the initial-development scenario. Two developers can pull changes from each other without polluting a centralized repository.
It looks like git / bzr / hg have better mechanisms than svn in the case you mention.
Those same mechanisms break just as badly as svn when you need to coordinate 10+ developers. The communication overhead of the developers dwarfs the way they sync files.
Any sort of branch/merge problems I encounter are mostly coders working on mutually incompatible versions of the base system. Not on a file level but rather on a protocol/format level
No mere source control system will be a hurdle of the same size as the hurdle of co-ordinating all the developers who broke each others preconditions.
---
So a switch to git will be best for projects with extremely stable interfaces where the branch/merge mechanism is the most time consuming part. Think: linux kernel, stable protocol services.
But where developers have to collaborate while modifying a shared framework git makes little difference. Think: early stage GUI frontends, or server components which inter-depend on message formats which are evolving.