What’s the best personal source code management system?
I need something to handle versioning on some local personal stuff. I just want it to run on my own box and have no plans to ever share any of the code via a repository. I’m using a Mac. Any opinions out there Internet? I’m comfortable with svn and that would be my default answer. But I’m thinking about using git just to try it out. Since I’m only using it local, I’m aware of hacking off perhaps the biggest advantage of using git at all (the *distributed* part). But I’m hoping the advantage in branch/merge still makes it worthwhile.
Anything else I should put on the short list?
Hi! My name is Alex Miller and I live in St. Louis. I write code for a living and currently work for 
I am using git for all my projects, team and local.
Svn server for local usage is way too heavy.
Mercurial, the more I use it, the more I’m impressed by it. It just works.
I’ve used SVN and mercurial so far and I am pretty satisfied with both.
SVN is probably superior when it comes to GUIs and IDE integration*, but I found mercurial easier when using it as a private code history and from a console terminal. Also Mercurial is faster with most operations and really shines in a distributed scenarios.
*I tried the Netbeans and Textmate plug-in and both work well, but I prefer to have a separate GUI as well like svnX / TortoiseSVN – not sure how TortoiseHG compares is by now..
Mercurial and bzr should be on your list, and are excellent. I think git gets a few more things right though, and suggest it as the right default choice.
Use Git. There’s an installer project on Google Code. For documentation, purchase the Peepcode Git PDF.
@Libin Pan – SVN doesn’t require a server process for local repositories. You can just use a file:// URL for local.
While git is definitely a really cool scm system, you need to take into account tools support for it. Personally I wouldn’t want to stick only to the cli interface if I can have tight ide integration. For example, in Eclipse it is History and Synchronize views, as well as annotations in all text editors. This works really well for svn, but git support is really limited.
I use SVN+Tortoise+External HD (using file://) for my personal files/projects.
It’s like having a portable SVN server. :)
You should consider Mercurial. There is also a nice Eclipse plugin (http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/mercurialeclipse), it’s community is very active.
I would highly recommend Git. There has been a very recent influx of high quality documentation, there’s a great community out there with answers to even hard questions (which do arise), and Git has the power to handle even the most difficult problems. But, in the end, Git also can simply behave much like SVN if you desire. There are several good articles on Git Workflows, look for one from Oliver Steele. If you’re on a Mac, you may be using Textmate; there is now a Git bundle for the editor and it’s similar to the SVN default bundle. Also, GitNub is a great tool for perusing the commits and branches of a repository.
Mercurial is also a good product, but I’m unfamiliar with its tool support or its community.
Thanks all – I’m going to give git a try. Install and initial setup were trivial – still learning how best to use it.
Have you tried CVS…..oh wait, you wanted worthwhile “branching/merging” capabilities.
Make sure to check out My Git Workflow and Commit Policies by Oliver Steele to give you a heads up about the large potential of git. It’s a framework for revision control, not a rcs.