[cryptonector]

> What surprises me more is how young Subversion is in comparison to git, it's barely older.

Subversion was so awful that it had to be replaced ASAP.

[bryanlarsen]

True. Also, Subversion was so great that it very quickly replaced the alternatives that predated it.

[cryptonector]

Not true. CVS stuck around a while longer.

[usefulcat]

There were far, far worse things out there than Subversion. VSS, ClearCase, an obscure commercial one written in Java whose name escapes me now..

Subversion was basically a better CVS. My recollection is that plenty of people were more than happy to switch to CVS or Subversion (even on Windows) if it meant they could escape from something as legitimately awful as VSS. Whereas the switch from Subversion to Git or Mercurial had more to do with the additional powers of the newer tools than the problems of the older ones.