Re: GSoC 2010: "Integrated Web Client for git" proposal

>>>> First, a question: do you feel proficient enough in Perl (and in web
>>>> scripting in Perl), or do you prefer other programming language for
>>>> web, like e.g. Python?  If you feel like you would do better programming
>>>> in Python (or PHP, or Ruby) rather than in Perl, you could write the
>>>> main part of this GSoC project in said language, and provide only hooks
>>>> into gitweb (with the help of developers on git mailing list).
>>>
>>> I don't know perl but learning it and becoming proficient in it won't be a
>>> matter for me. I believe I am a fast learner and I am a computer science
>>> student in the top university of India. I learnt python in an hour and
>>> became proficient in it by a week. So learning perl won't be a matter for
>>> me.
>>
>> I can agree that you would be able to learn Perl in a week.  I do not
>> think however that you can become proficient in Perl (and neither in any
>> other non-trivial programming language) in such short time.  The question
>> remains if you can be proficient enough for the task in question...
> 
> I can learn perl in 3 hours. Becoming proficient in perl is just
> knowing about all the majorly used inbuilt functions and libraries.
> Coming to the concepts of programming, I already know a lot about it
> along with data structures and algortihms. So you need not doubt me on
> this.

>>>> "It aims at developing functionalities for working on a git repository."
>>>> Not only this is not grammatical, but also doesn't tell us the goal
>>>> of your project.  Is it something to edit files and create commits via
>>>> web, be to git-gui what git-instaweb is to gitk?  Is it about editing
>>>> gitweb-specific configuration, like README/README.html and 'description'
>>>> file from web browser?  Is it managing git repositories, i.e. create,
>>>> fork or clone and mirror repositories, something that Gerrit does for
>>>> repo.or.cz (repo.or.cz uses gitweb for viewing repositories)?
>>>>
>>> I think you understood it from the later part of my proposal.
>>
>> Yes, I found it in later parts of proposal, but don't you think that
>> this goal of this project should be stated upfront, so that one can
>> know what this project is to be about from project description itself?
> 
> I thought it should be described later in the "Describe your project
> in more detail" section.  So, I didn't go into details here.

>>>>>    * modules (dir) -- directory containing the write and read modules.
>>>>>    * lib (dir) -- some basic files like config, error_handler,
>>>>> templater, redirecter, htmlHelper etc..
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure about modules/ directory: wouldn't lib/ be enough?
>>>> What needs to be in modules/ that cannot be put in lib/?
>>
>> I guess (please correct me if I am wrong) that lib/ would contain modules
>> *required* by gitweb, and modules/ would contain *optional* modules
>> needed for extra functionality (for extra features).
> 
> You are half correct.
> lib/ contains modules *required* by gitweb
> modules/ contains actions *performed* in gitweb like commitlog,
> snapshot etc.. (write actions too)
> 
> Maybe I will rename it to actions/ to not to be confused.

>>>>>   1. Add existing repositories to the gitweb -- This will list the
>>>>>      given repo into gitweb config
>>>>
>>>> Note that if gitweb scans for repositories ($projects_list is
>>>> a directory, not a file with the list of projects), gitweb would detect
>>>> new repository automatically.  This feature (autodetecting
>>>> repositories) is fore example requirement on git.kernel.org.
>>>>
>>> Let us say if there are multiple repositories in multiple paths, wouldn't it
>>> be good to add a single project. This option will be available along with
>>> scanning $projects_root.
>>
>> If gitweb is configured to scan for repositories, adding existing git
>> repository to gitweb doesn't make sense.  If gitweb is configured to
>> use static file with list of repositories, of course it would make
>> sense... but then the question is how would one specify location of
>> a new repository to add.
> 
> How about like this ?
> We will have a static file with list of projects. All the repositories
> in scan path will be added to this list. Then we will also have an
> option to add an existing repository which can be done when the user
> specifies a relative or full path to the repository.

>>> Yes. I will not be doing it in GSoC and it won't be a part of gitweb, But I
>>> hope to provide an authentication wrapper for gitweb in future.
>>
>> Well, unless there would be time for it after you finish all other work,
>> but it is a bit unlikely.
> 
> I don't think so. I would like to constantly contribute to gitweb.