Benefits from a real world switch from CVS to darcs

by Mark Stosberg

There is also a single page version of this document.

I recently switched the source control management for a project at work from CVS to darcs. For others who may be considering such a switch, I'd like to explain those areas that I feel like have improved, and those where darcs is currently weak.

First, I'll give some details about the project scope, so you can better compare it to your own usage model. My team consists of four darcs users. We use a mix of Mac OS X and Linux on the desktop, although we primarily interact with darcs through shell accounts on FreeBSD servers.

The project itself is a website, including about 40,000 lines of Perl code, with over 3,000 files stored in over 600 directories. It uses about 150 Megs of disk space per copy, which includes some video files as big as 10 Megs each. At the time we switched, we had over 2,000 commits in the CVS tree, spanning about a years worth of work.

• • Background: Our usage model and reasons for switching
    • Looking Past CVS: Comparing the Alternatives
  • How darcs has made my life easier
    • basic work flow design and our new smoke bot
    • A better launch process
    • Better personal change management
    • Easy cherry picking
    • Easier developer collaboration
    • Better exception handling
    • Better code review
    • Better infrastructure: Built-in XML support
  • Performance: the good and the bad.
    • When darcs performs better
    • When darcs performs worse and what I can do about it.
  • Final words
  • About this document