In what ways is Mercurial better/worse than TFS? [closed]

Question

I've just joined a new company and at the moment we're using Microsoft SourceSafe as our repository. The settings aren't ideal and it's proving to be a big pain in the neck.

I've recently used Mercurial and thought it was amazing, so I'm advocating switching to that, but it looks like the company already has a Team Foundation Server licence and wants to use that instead.

Can anyone give me a list of points where one is better than the other? I've not used TFS and so I don't know what it's good/bad at.

Answer 1

You cannot directly compare TFS and a DVCS.

If your company leans toward TFS, that may be because of the other features TFS comes with (data collection, reporting, and project tracking, all well integrated with Microsoft products)

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On the pure Version-Control side, the Team Foundation Server 2010, with its Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) 2010, introduces branches as first-class citizen.
See Team Foundation Server and branching characteristics, compared to others.

I still find their branching models more complex than a Mercurial or Git one.
See TFS2010 Branching into a subfolder of another branch vs. Guide to Branching Model in Mercurial (and this SO question which also details merges and branches with DVCS)

That being said, it remains a CVCS (Centralized VCS), meaning you get different working processes than with a DVCS: see Describe your workflow of using version control (VCS or DVCS).

The true killer feature of a DVCS remains its merge capability (simpler and faster than any CVCS). But introducing a DVCS in a corporate environment remains hard.

Answer 2

I recommend Joel on Software http://hginit.com for a list of very good reasons to switch to distributed version control.