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Firefox development is moving from Mercurial to Git (2023)
- zabzonk 2y agoA bit sad (I prefer hg.) But at least just about everyone is now using a VCS, which was very far from the case when I started programming seriously back in the early 1980s.
- altairprime 2y ago(7 months ago, 227 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38160161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38160161
- dang 2y agoThanks! That makes the current post a dupe since 7 months ago is less than a year ago, and 227 comments is significant attention. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html (Reposts are fine on HN after a year or so, or if a story hasn't had significant attention yet.)
- altairprime 2y agoOh, oops! Sorry, should have emailed.
- dang 2y agoNot at all! what you posted was perfect. I was just adding a more general explanation for users who hadn't heard the principles yet. It's a nice case where the principles are unusually clear.
- afavour 2y agoI don't blame them but I do feel there's a certain irony at work. The same forces that lead us in the direction of a browser mono-culture also lead us towards a source control mono-culture!
- Waterluvian 2y agoI dunno… sometimes a tool is simply good and self-justifies why it’s broadly useful and used.
- spondylosaurus 2y agoIs it bad that Git has become a defacto standard? I do think the saturation of GitHub is problematic (for obvious reasons) but at this point Git feels as generic to me as like, I dunno, DNS. Unless there's more going on that I'm not aware of, which is always possible!
- w0m 2y agois github still aggregating ~everything like it used to? I'm interested what effect the Microsoft had on overall adoption.
- sverhagen 2y agoPersonally, I enjoy that we rally around a common set of tools, as an industry. And Git is probably the best choice in its category. But that may have to do as much with adoption and network effect as it has with inherent quality. It's an advanced tool, but many folks struggle with the less common tasks, while many others struggle with even fairly basic things like a rebase. In an ideal world, if I imagine it, there'd be a tool like Git that lives at a different plane of usability. And I am unsure that a monoculture would be very encouraging in ever getting us there.
- internetter 2y agoFor a while, I was an absolutist on the git CLI. Recently though, I've been using fork for git. I've found that it is much easier to do rebases on it than the interactive mode. It's good to have something as powerful as git, and then build upon it to make it accessible to everyone.
- gregschlom 2y ago> In an ideal world, if I imagine it, there'd be a tool like Git that lives at a different plane of usability Isn't that exactly what Mercurial is trying to be?
- SamuelAdams 2y agoIs this actually happening soon? This seems to be linked to a 7 month old issue that is still open.
- shortrounddev2 2y agoI tried pulling their mercurial repo once and it took forever
- wakawaka28 2y agoMercurial is notoriously slow, and that is a large repo.
- neilv 2y agoWhy GitHub? Of course it's the most popular (due to goodwill before it was acquired, and then inertia), but there are also other options that might be a better match for Mozilla's open mission.
- Terretta 2y agoIt's not inertia, it's gravity. There is a pull to be the place things are. You can find things, and your thing can be found.
- bawolff 2y agoTo be honest, i never really understood this mentality for github. Code contribution isn't really the sort of thing people just randomly start doing because they are already on github. Github is not a social network (no matter how hard they might try to push social features)
- floating-io 2y agoI disagree. My observation: instead of gaming likes, people are gaming contribution metrics. It's a subtle sort of "social credit score" type thing these days. It may not be Facebook, but the social aspects and impacts are nevertheless strong.
- wasabinator 2y agoAgree with this. My coworkers often use their personal accounts purely for those sweet sweet contribution dots.
- bawolff 2y agoSure, but i think the real question is do you want those types of people contributing to your project? Like are the people doing it for points really likely to make valuable contributions?
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- koolala 2y agogait
- redundantly 2y agoMy only concern here is the use of GitHub. This move will give Microsoft more power.
- chris_wot 2y agoHow?
- wakawaka28 2y agoIt promotes reliance on a Microsoft product, and one that rips off your IP to train AI even if you pay for private repos.
- chris_wot 2y agoWhat would prevent anyone from using the current Mozilla repos to train their AI?
- wakawaka28 2y agoThink of it as a further endorsement for Github. As if they need any more at this point. They're a decent Git host but you know why Microsoft bought them.
- hayleox 2y agoEh, I mean if GitHub does something really crappy, it wouldn't be _that_ hard for them to move to GitLab or self-hosted. Git remains a free and open standard.
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