Bitbucket: like hosted Trac with Mercurial

Posted on August 13, 2008
Filed Under Software |

bitbucket-logo Bitbucket: like hosted Trac with Mercurial

I’ve been using the Mercurial distributed version control system for projects which require any kind of VCS for years now. I have these folks1 to thank for the introduction to this fine solution for managing versions of complex projects involving all sorts of code and other components.

Trac is another important tool I’m using with some of my projects- I’ve been an avid Trac user for quite a while now, having started with it and Subversion about four or five years ago. I’ve been running it quite successfully with the Mercurial plugin now for about 5 months, which I think is doubly nice. Using Trac to manage projects is quite handy, since not only do you get a nice web interface to your source repositories, but also project/issue tracking functionality, a wiki, and more.

While I am largely a proponent of maintaining as much control over such solutions as possible, I have to admit that after just ten minutes of using BitBucket, I just might have to seriously reconsider continued Trac usage. If you’re a fan of Mercurial, but haven’t heard of BitBucket yet, go check it out! It is a free service that provides 150MB of Mercurial repository goodness with a very slick (much nicer than Trac’s default) front-end interface, and a collection of similar features to those found in Trac.

About the name: If you’re worried about the project’s name with respect to its original meaning in the computer world, which is jargon for the place where missing data goes, fear not! I’m confident that if you’re using Mercurial in a proper distributed fashion, your data should be fine at all times! One thing about the name I’d recommend to the BitBucket team: Get an SEO guru to work on your rankings pronto - those sleazeballs at Wikipedia are outranking you in the Google SERPs!

The advantages of using BitBucket are that you’re not concerning yourself with the maintenance of a Trac installation and its corresponding server, OS, etc., and being a hosted service, the setup is quite quick and simple. Plus the user interface just feels more modern than Trac- dare I say, more Web 2.0-ish even?

For example, you can “follow” others’ public projects in a manner that is similar to that crappy microblogging service2 that’s always down these days- only I’m fairly sure that BitBucket has had considerably less downtime than the broken bird’s nest I am referring to.

So, if you like Mercurial, and want to check out a neat hosted solution that doesn’t cost a cent, have a look at BitBucket!

  1. I cut my teeth on hg through constant daily with certain documentation projects at rPath [↩]
  2. HINT: Cast yer eyes upon that thar whale that be a failin’… Avast ye! the Twitter be down again! [↩]

Comments

2 Responses to “Bitbucket: like hosted Trac with Mercurial”

  1. Jesper Noehr on August 24th, 2008 11:43 am

    Thank you for the kind words :-) Glad you like it.

  2. brian on August 24th, 2008 1:56 pm

    Sure thing, and thanks in turn, for visiting, Jesper! I really dig the Wiki contents being in a repo as well, that’s nice touch to be sure.

    I’ll be continuing to use Bitbucket going forward, and hopefully, will have some feedback and other contributions for the project in time.

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