Mercurial is great for personal projects
Posted by Jorge Bernal April 15, 2008
First, I hope this doesn’t become a flamewar about version control, it’s just what I’ve found useful.
Sometimes I feel the need to be able to go back in time when doing small changes. I don’t want to set up an external repository, creating branches or anything like that: just plain file revision control.
Whenever I feel that need I do:
$ hg init $ hg add $ hg commit -m "Initial import"
And I’m ready to go
The only thing I have to care about is the .hgignore file, to skip logs, cache files and so on.
If I don’t need version control anymore, I just have to remove the .hg directory and everything is like it was before.
By the way, I’m working on my new personal site: stay tuned for more!
I know, I know, I’m starting a war on VCSes, but if you were to replace every instance of “hg” with “bzr” in those 3 lines it would work exactly the same.
I agree with you that hg is very good. I first started working with it for a website redesign. Now I use it for all kinds of things.
I know about bazaar. In fact, it was my first option, but when I first tried it on my mac it crashed where mercurial worked, so I stayed with hg
If you want to save even more time, you can probably setup a user wide ignore list in ~/.hgconfig or somesuch. (as in git)
I’ve used Bazaar, Mercurial and Git for personal projects. When I was using Bazaar, it was great because I was working as an “outsourced” developer at a company that didn’t let me install any software. So, at first, it was either the SourceSafe thing or nothing (obviously, I chose the latter, which is much superior). A few days later, I used Portable Python + Bazaar, and did the trick.
So, if you’re working in a “Nazi” company, and you can’t install anything, use PortablePython+Bazaar. Hmmm, on a second thought, they did forbid the use of free/open-source software, requiring a specific “free software exception” form. It’s a good thing I no longer work there
I’m using git (just personal preference) and doing exactly that. Also when I’m feeling more adventurous I make a branch for that feature.
+1 for DVCS