Question

Our shop is geographically distributed, and our current source control is centralized, slowing the source control operations (check-in/check-out) for developers far from it. If we migrate to GIT, would it make any of these operations faster?

Answer 1

It depends how centralized it’d need to be in the future. For example, with Git, as an individual developer you can create a branch, do lots of work, keep making (instant) commits for each new thing you do/change, and nothing goes over the wire at all until you do a git push! Any git pulls you do would still be going over the wire as much as your svn updates, of course..

If, however, your workflow is so centralized that you’d pretty much expect a centralized commit (i.e. a push), you’ll still be going over the wire. Unless your connection is really bad, the difference in the protocols and what’s being sent by each system is probably unimportant even though Git has a slight edge.

One potential advantage, though, could be if you have multiple developers at several sites. You could then set up separate git repositories at each site with all commits/check outs going over the local network only (from the developer POV) and then sync the repositories between shops or with a “central” repository once a day or whatever.

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the question, but hopefully this at least helps a tiny bit.. 🙂