I also wanted to note that Luke’s last link is dead… The one enclosing the text “Mercurial has a few perceived downsides”

Thanks for pointing that out. For some reason your comment was held for approval because it thought it was spam, so I didn’t see it right away. Have you passed a turing test lately? Maybe once disqus allows importing of comments, I’ll use it

Anyway, when you say that “in Mercurial if you wish to make a branch, you simply hg clone it.” This isn’t entirely correct. Cloning makes a whole new tree (repo), branches and all. So you do effectively get a new branch, but also a whole new tree. The easier and more appropriate way to branch is with the branch command. It creates a new branch in the current repository. Using clone to branch is intended for something called “big-picture branch” (like a major 1.0 release) which is not in the spirit of cheap branching. “Small-picture branches” can be used for every little feature etc. Small-picture branches are the bread and butter of Hg.

Finally, Mercurial has a few perceived downsides. They aren’t fundamental show-stoppers but they are hurtles that some aren’t willing to take on in order to get a better revision control model.