hg is easier to type than git. That's 33% better at least(with integer percentages, it's event better with float percentages... and even better with fractions).<p>Imagine typing git 20 times? Well can you see it now? Good.<p>NOW, imagine typing hg 20 times, that is 60 keys pressed, VS only 40 keys. You'll probably make less errors with 2 keys too.<p>git didn't bring anything new to version control... with it's 3 key system. svn had 3 letters, cvs even had 3 letters. However hg has brought a 33% improvement to version control -- with it's revolutionary 2 letter system.<p>Obviously a break through. Obviously fucking cool.
Git gets talked about a lot because it's a good tool, and was written by Linus Torvalds - which basically ensures that a <i>whole lot</i> of people will try it out. Since it's pretty damn good at what it does, most of those people kept on using it.
Alas neither can support effective work in large repositories: at my day job we have about 100gb repository (just one branch), but most people only use 4Gb at a time. Except the build servers - they get the most of the stuff at once. Perforce lets you create partial enlistment and only get the 4gb you need, while both Git and Hg require pulling entire 100Gb over the network.<p>There's been very little progress on these issues as well - both communities seem to be content with relatively small repositories. Sad.
Mercurial is widely used...<p>> Has mercurial failed?<p>I'm not sure why you equate hype with success. Anyway, Hg is an awesome tool. I love FreeHg too. I use it to manage my .vim/vimfiles, amongst other things.
I first heard about Git when the guy who wrote most of of stood up and did an empassioned Google Tech Talk about it. I'm loathe to pick it out as marketing, because that invites the idea that any communication is marketing communication. But communication is important, I've never heard a Mercurial dev get up and talk good about their project.<p>Is git technically better? I have no idea, git works fine for me, someone will have to get up and point out why Hg is so great before I even try it.
What do you want us to say about it? I use it every day at work and at home, and it's a solid DVCS; I don't talk about grep (or any of my other tools), either, but that doesn't mean grep "failed".<p>It could be where you hang out. I heard about Git a lot when I was using Rails, because Rails used it. I hear a lot about Github here on HN, because it's a cool web startup. If you go someplace where Hg is used (and there are some big projects) you see a very different picture.