GIT for a solo developer

• It's faster than Subversion
• You can have all of your history with you on your laptop
• You can sync between machines without having to worry about whether your server is online/accessible/etc.
• git stash is great for stowing away half-done changes
• You can create a new repository by going into a directory and using git init, without having to do any server setup or administration
• GitHub is a pretty nice place to host Git repositories
• Why Git is Better Than X

I created an account on bitbucket for my personal projects, for two reasons:

1. At work, I work in centralized source control system. I wanted to learn about DVCS. Mercurial seems better for Windows environment. So far, I like it.
2. I want my source code backed up off-site.

Branches.

Branches just seem so much easier to create. You can work in the same directory and then switch between branches with one simple command. So you don't need to have a separate directory for each branch and it is much faster than any other scm I've used.

For me it's been using Git in conjunction with github.com - it saves me needing to worry about setting up and managing the actual repository system itself meaning I can concentrate on the more important part - learning how to use the main commands themselves :)

I've not got experience with any other SCM platform so my opinion is probably a little on the basic side but it's been pleasant enough to work with - given that I'm in Windows it's also nice to know there's decent support in the form of msysgit.

Everyone is different I guess, but for me, a beginner really, it's been a very gentle introduction to SCM.

I recently did roughly the same switch you are contemplating. I'd say that yes, it is worth it, for the improvements in workflow that better branch handling, the index, and the possibility of working offline brings you. It's not a painless change though, a lot of concepts are sufficiently different to be confusing at first.

There are a few posts out there on the main differences between SVN and git that might be useful to read. This is a (biased) overview.

Distributed source control allows local commits and you can do these offline.

While Linus's talk about git is very fun to watch and full of truths, not all of them are applicable to small teams or teams of one.

You can use git as a front-end with local commits to an SVN repo using git-svn. Using this with your existing SVN repo offers a back-out plan if you don't grow to like the tools.

There are of course other distributed source control systems.

I adopted the technique of using source control (first with CVS and then with SVN) to synch and backup my environments around ten years ago (probably more). It basically worked but I found it a little clunky and did not do as thorough a job as I would have liked, letting some systems get a little stale and succumbing to using new systems and avoiding setting up those systems for use with this scheme.

About a year or so ago, my son convinced me to try out git. Now, all my systems are synched and backed up to our family git repo hub, providing the personal privacy I require (ssh access).

I find the git usage model so easy to use that I now have a daily ritual of pushing changes from the machine I most recently used and pulling them to the next machine I use (there are typically five or so computers involved in my day-day work). Those answering before me have done a great job of addressing the git technical advantages. My testimony is to the ease of use advantage git has over svn, as applied to exactly what you want to do based on doing it for about nine months now.

That said, expect some discomfort early on as git is very much a different model and it takes some getting used to. But between SO, published books (I recommend the O'Reilly book) and abundant net resources, learning git is now easier than ever.