The new distributed revision control systems (DRCS) have some important advantages for traditional use, apart from the ability to commit without an internet connection.
DRCS make code review much easier. Instead of using an entirely different system for managing the code review process, developers can check all of their un-reviewed changes into a branch, and merge changes as they get reviewed.
DRCS can support graduated continuous integration. In sufficiently large projects, continuous integration can cause frequent build breakage. Instead of having a single, volatile HEAD, subprojects can have their own independent integration branches, which they merge to the superproject integration branch at longer intervals.
DRCS support "lines of development", or working on multiple independent features. With traditional RCS, once a feature is committed it becomes part of the blob, and may not easily be dealt with as a separate identity.
The original motivation for DRCS was empowering decoupled open source contributors, so it's mildly ironic that this functionality should be so valuable for BigCo development as well.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
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