I guess I'm really asking what's the advantage of distributed version control over centralized for Joe Coder. Distributed VC seems quite different, and I'm wondering whether it's worth the time to learn. Or should I just get on with writing code using the VCS I'm used to?
The way that git deals with branching is great. I'm a real fan of the way that it lets me context switch. This feature isn't a result of git's distributed nature, but I think it's worth switching VCS's for.
One of the advantages it certainly gave me is that there isn't any difference between the local and remote repositories. There aren't any daemons to start and no infrastructure to keep up; just initialize your repo and go!
`git init` and you've got a local repo. One .git folder in your root directory and that's it. Blow away the one folder and you're back to where you started. None of the .svn folder spam you get with subversion.
There are a few differences in commands and concepts, but you can keep it simple and the experience is about the same for small to medium independent projects.