Would it be better to use git clone, git checkout VERSION?

[julianw]

Just thought it maybe better to use git clone, git checkout VERSION. So you don't need to download the archive of each version installed.

[creationix]

Then that would add a dependency on git. Not everyone has that installed. You can easily make your own version of nvm that does that if you want though.

Also the archive is only the most recent files. Doing a full git clone grabs all history as well. For people only installing a version at a time, the tarball is faster.