darcs

Darcs

darcs is a distributed revision control system designed for efficient handling of large projects. It has innovative features like patch commutation and tracking downwards history.
darcs image
distributed revision-control

Darcs: Distributed Revision Control System

Darcs is a distributed revision control system designed for efficient handling of large projects. It has innovative features like patch commutation and tracking downwards history.

What is Darcs?

darcs is an advanced distributed revision control system that differs fundamentally from systems like Git and Mercurial in its underlying theory. While darcs shares common functionality with other version control tools like committing and branching/merging changes, it is built on a unique algebra of patches and provides innovative features like patch commutation and tracking downwards history.

Some key features and capabilities of darcs include:

  • Distributed peer-to-peer architecture - every user has the full history stored locally
  • Interactive record and unrecord for flexible commit/uncommit workflow
  • Cherrypick and obliterate commands for modifying history
  • Patch theory enables advanced conflict resolution by commuting or reordering patches
  • Supports nested repositories for subprojects or dependency management
  • Simplified branching, tagging, and merging model compared to directed acyclic graphs
  • More meaningful and cleaner diffs thanks to tracking downward history

darcs is implemented purely in Haskell and emphasizes correctness, robustness, and speed in handling large projects across distributed teams of developers. Its unique patch theory and advanced features make it a popular choice for many open source projects.

Darcs Features

Features

  1. Distributed version control
  2. Supports offline working
  3. Efficient handling of large projects
  4. Patch theory based approach
  5. Interactive record and apply patches
  6. Supports cherry picking changes
  7. Built-in conflict resolution

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Distributed model allows working offline

Efficient branching and merging

Interactive conflict resolution

Good for large projects with many contributors

Cons

Steep learning curve

Slower than Git for some workflows

Less active development than Git

Smaller user community than Git or SVN


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