Distributed version control for HUGE projects - is it feasible?

Question

We\'re pretty happy with SVN right now, but Joel\'s tutorial intrigued me. So I was wondering - would it be feasible in our situation too?

The thing is - our SVN reposit

Answer 1

Don't worry about repository space requirements. My anecdote: when I converted our codebase from SVN to git (full history - I think), I found that the clone used less space than just the WVN working directory. SVN keeps a pristine copy of all your checked-out files: look at $PWD/.svn/text-base/ in any SVN checkout. With git the entire history takes less space.

What really surprised me was how network-efficient git is. I did a git clone of a project at a well-connected place, then took it home on a flash disk, where I keep it up to date with git fetch / git pull, with just my puny little GPRS connection. I wouldn't dare to do the same in an SVN-controlled project.

You really owe it to yourself to at least try it. I think you'll be amazed at just how wrong your centralised-VCS-centric assumptions were.