> The benefits come at a cost though (I say this as someone who works with both). For many environments, a centralized VCS is all you need.
I'm having a hard time understanding what these extra "costs" are. I haven't used SVN in a while, but I think the only extra cost is an extra command to push your changes to a repository.
Meanwhile, the advantages of a distributed VCS are huge. Even if everyone is developing on the same LAN it seems beneficial to have a DVCS. I've been on multiple projects where the centralized VCS goes down for a day or even a week. In that scenario everyone has to stop committing changes. Sharing changes with a coworker now requires making a patch file or some other cumbersome operation.
I can't think of a situation where a centralized VCS is better for any team.
I just find I end up spending quite a bit more time fighting with git than I do svn. It may be anecdotal, but I find my workflows are far more error prone in git, and consequently they take a lot more overhead to ensure they are right.
What you say might be true by at least accepted theory, and it is true that command-line git (and git has a reputation of a bad command line) is the only dcvs I have worked with but I don't see a way around the fact that since you allow more complexity in interactions between repos, this is going to have more overhead. Even you seem to acknowledge twice as many commands for version control management for the simplest cases.
I am not really anti-git even. As I say I use it for some things. But I am not at all convinced dvcs is always the right tool for the job.
> Even you seem to acknowledge twice as many commands for version control management for the simplest cases.
Well, I didn't really say that regarding the simplest cases. There is one extra command to get something into the central repository, but basic checkouts and updates from the repository are still one command.
I've gone through the "fighting" with git stage, but it was more because I was trying to use concepts that aren't even possible with SVN rather than that git makes things more complicated.
I'm having a hard time understanding what these extra "costs" are. I haven't used SVN in a while, but I think the only extra cost is an extra command to push your changes to a repository.
Meanwhile, the advantages of a distributed VCS are huge. Even if everyone is developing on the same LAN it seems beneficial to have a DVCS. I've been on multiple projects where the centralized VCS goes down for a day or even a week. In that scenario everyone has to stop committing changes. Sharing changes with a coworker now requires making a patch file or some other cumbersome operation.
I can't think of a situation where a centralized VCS is better for any team.