What you lose is the live state which monticello does not store anyway, how could it ? it only stores text files, its actually far more anti-Smalltalk than git is. Because with git you can version control your pharo images or your fuel files than contain the live state or you could export the live state and live code to a binary file. Now try that with monticello.�� The irony is very large, Git is far more Smalltalk friendly, than Monticello is.
"The island argument is also a bit too easy: any platform can be seen as
an island that needs to integrate with others, there are degrees of
openness. Your Blender or Python are islands too, just like SAP,
Microsoft and Oracle. Some connections/interfaces are easy, some are
hard(er). It all depends on your position."
I completely agree in the end every API ever programm is to a degree an island. No code ever shakes in terror saying "oh my god I need to make my code 100% compatible with whatever is out there" . Its not possible. But the culture of those other languages is "lets keep things close" , "lets make coder's life" easier , "lets keep compatibility and standard/common practices" .
Smalltalk does not do that because it loves experimentation, the whole smalltalk enviroment�� is experimentation heaven playground. Thats great because without it we dont have smalltalk but its also bad.
"When have you last looked at the source code of git ?"
Never ? Why should I, I dont even take a look at monticello source code. I tried to improve auto completion and my head kept spinning around and around, 10s of hours still could not figure out the code. I am not smart or knowledgable to judge Monticello on a source code basis. Maybe source code wise, core wise, Monticello is 1000 times better than Git, but my complains with Monticello is on the user level. As a smalltalker I just dont see the point of prefering Monticello over Git , or screw Git, you want mercurial ? thats fine too.
I just dont see it whats the big deal with Monticello.
"And be honest, do you find git always easy to use ?"
I have been honest from the very start when I started pushing for git and Github. I have been crystal clear. My usage of git is super simple.
I dont work in teams, I work alone, I dont even use branches, I do git pull, git add, git commit and git push. I have reverted commits a couple of times, I have reset to head sometimes because of some nasty merges and that was it.�� I am almost never have merge conflicts.
You want me to compare my experience with monticello and StHub VS git and Github using Pharo ? Nope you dont.
Do I find git always easy to use ? You know what , I am a python coder and I definetly appreciate ease of use and simplicity but lets be frank here Git was made by the same guy that made the freaking Linux kernel. He made Git not to be easy but able to manage an enormous amount of code the easy way the fastest possible way and he accomplished that goal.
So do I find git easy to use ? Nope
Do I care ? Nope, because I rather use something that is difficult to use but powerful and with good performance than something that is very easy to use , limited and slow. Hell , I dont even find Pharo easy to use , its power and flexibility that made me love it.