A few weeks ago, I managed to convince my client to switch to Bzr.

It was an involved process: not really hard, but there were a lot of stuff that needed to be done, and that took time. We're still in the process of settling down and getting adjusted to the new workflow. Nonetheless, the switch took real effort, and, again, it's not even completely done yet at this stage.

So, I suppose, I shouldn't be suprised if it turns out I'm going to be a client-less freelancer after I mention that I'm seriously considering switching to git.

Why? Two words: tool support. git, being the bearer of the distributed version control Kool-Aid, has a lot of mindshare amongst both free and proprietary developers. That means git users an attractive demographic to target.

Don't get me wrong: I love Bazaar to bits. I'm using it personally right now, and will continue to do so for the forseeable future—although I do use Mercurial to manage my Arch User Repo contributions). I've even contributed some minor code to it (use your browser's inline find to search for my name).

And big projects use it, too; Ubuntu uses (and started the development of) it, so does MySQL, and it's the official SCM of the GNU Project. So it's not as if I'm striving to work with an unknown niche product.

But, from my point of view, git has trumped Bazaar.

At first, Bazaar had ease of use on its side. I didn't care that it took a while starting up on my then–6-or-7 year old desktop: as long as I didn't have to learn the mystical voodoo mojo git required of me, I'd have laid down on lava. I didn't care about speed of execution: I was used to things crawling on my rig. But, as time went by, git snuck up on Bazaar's number one item on its brag sheet.

Fast forward to today, and even former Visual Basic programmers can use git effectively, while Bazaar's list of commands have grown and grown to the point that I couldn't figure out how to use them properly without consulting the documentation.

Oh, and don't get me started on Bazaar's documentation. WTH, Bazaar devs? Where's my how-to-install-PQM-on-your-servers guide? Is that even possible? Or do I have to deploy Launchpad locally, too?

git, of course, took the douchey route (or, you know, the open source route, depending on your sensibilities, I suppose): the Intarwebs has written its documentation for it. Hell, sometimes, I'd search for instructions on how to do something in Bzr, only to come up with instructions for git.

Obviously, I haven't drank the git Kool-Aid. But if I were to approach this pragmatically (as, I suppose, I should), I'd pick git in a heartbeat: It's faster, has more tools, more mindshare, better integration, and, hell, let's face it, it looks better in a resume. So it doesn't play nice with Windows: I don't play nice with Windows.

The trouble is, how do I approach the client regarding this, when we're barely two months into Bazaar mode?

Of course, as noted above, I'll still be using Bazaar personally. Why? That's easy.

I drank the Bazaar Kool-Aid.