312,567 commits, 49GB of compressed repo, and stackoverflow. That is how the migration began. After git svn fetch ran for a week, I wondered when it might end. After two weeks, I wondered if it would ever end. And of course, I wondered what would be waiting there if it did end.
Meanwhile, there wasn't anything I could do except watch all of the commits fly by. It was a wonderful trip down memory lane. I knew enough about git that I didn't feel good about it, though. I saw large binaries that were committed only to be deleted a few months later. Test data in zip files that would form the basis of our integration testing. Dojo? Docbook? All those experiments that were permanently recorded with revision numbers, and were being swept into what I hoped would be a brave new world of DVCS.
It all started in 1999 when 5 companies were started in an incubator. By the time I came along in 2004, I began working for the one remaining company. The development team was still using VCS. A subversion implementation followed in 2005 and we never looked back. Branching, merging, editing the same file at the same time, it was all wonderful.
Mind you, most of those commits happened during the VC phase where we attempted to convert $50M into value for customers, an esteemed board of directors, and with some luck there would be some leftovers for us. We did pretty well, and exited for $150M to a Fortune 50 company.
