Hmm? It’s just a directed graph of SHA1s under the hood. Seems pretty simple to me once you understand that. My understanding was that Hg’s data model is actually way more complicated with more pointers.
As everyone else is chiming in, the reason git won was speed. I haven’t used mercurial in a few years but at the time when I was looking to replace SVN, git did everything seconds faster than Hg which made it the clear winner.
It wasn't just speed, it was also that the Linux kernel was developed under git, that Linus created git, and the existence of github, which a lot of people liked.
After a while, it also just developed a critical mass where the attitude of people/companies that weren't using it almost inevitably became one of "everybody else is using git, so we should too".
All these concepts are extremely useful in practice. I do not see them in any way as “needlessly” complex. Difficult to learn... maybe, but not just for the hell of it.
The Git index is one of its most powerful features. Try doing a `git add -e` sometime. You get to do a bunch of work in the workspace then split it up usefully at commit time.
Hmm? It’s just a directed graph of SHA1s under the hood. Seems pretty simple to me once you understand that. My understanding was that Hg’s data model is actually way more complicated with more pointers.
As everyone else is chiming in, the reason git won was speed. I haven’t used mercurial in a few years but at the time when I was looking to replace SVN, git did everything seconds faster than Hg which made it the clear winner.