At WormBase, we’ve been busy re-writing the website from the ground up to build a modern information discovery space that will generically handle genomic data.

As the project manager, I made the executive decision to switch from CVS/SVN to a distributed version control system (DVCS). I’d used both git and mercurial personally for over a year and enjoyed their flexibility.

And given the already distributed nature of our project, DVCS was a natural fit. (In fact, I believe that DVCS should be roundly adopted across the genomics/bioinformatics research sector precisely for this reason).

Nonetheless, for small teams accustomed to the quirks of SVN, the transition to DVCS can be a rocky road. Recently I came across Joel Spolsky’s excellent HG Init: Mercurial Tutorial.

If you’re considering or in the process of switching to Mercurial, I highly recommend checking out Joel’s tutorial and circulating it to your team.