Distributed version control seems to have surged since Linus Torvalds kicked Bitkeeper to the curb in early 2005. Of course he immediately started writing a DVCS named git. His celebrity brought it instant attention, even an hour long presentation at Google HQ (I have to watch this someday).

About a year ago I downloaded version 1.5.3.8 of git and played with it. It was okay, I guess. It wasn't easy to love, not that I mind that too much. The bin directory contains 145+ standalone apps, although I guess they are typically used in the unix-y "my stdout is your stdin" approach?

Git's got the goods, no doubt. It capably manages a top-tier complex and distributed codebase. That is an uncommonly difficult task and satisfying it means leaving some facets less polished. Namely, learning curve and ease of use. I didn't feel like tackling both of those while learning a new type of version control.

Mercurial competes with git in the DVCS arena. It has a nice website and some really nice quick reference cards. It didn't and still doesn't distract me while I'm trying to grok what's different and possibly better about DVCS.

Part of "distributed" means having a read/write repository somewhere on the internet. There's probably a few ways to do it; "hg serve" runs an HTTP server with a decent interface for your repository. It's pretty nice, I've tried it. But the fewer servers I have to maintain the better. That's where BitBucket comes in.

Another part of "distributed" means making it easy to actually share a repository. Pushing and pulling files is critical but viewing prior revisions, tracking bugs, having a wiki, and rss/atom feeds are big wins for daily work. BitBucket offers those and makes it easy. Really easy. Within 30-45 minutes or so I had:

1. Signed up using my OpenID / ClaimID account.
2. Uploaded a public key
3. Created a repository and pushed changes over ssh
4. Updated Google Reader with an RSS feed for my repository

All for free! Apparently they also offer features which simplify all the distribute-y goodness in Mercurial. But that's a far cry from where I am now.