Re: Git User's Survey 2008 partial summary, part 3

From: Jonas Fonseca <jonas.fonseca@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 7, 2008, 23:07 UTC
Message-ID: <2c6b72b30809071607m69148ec0mc9d0925e24bb7b7e@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20080906051530.GB28035@spearce.org>

On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 07:15, Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org> wrote:

> Actually, I'm rather excited by what's going on in the Git IDE
> space these days.  The NetBeans plugin is seeing more activity,
> and since GSoC so has EGit.  Both projects have been steadily
> picking up contributors.  Quite a good thing.

One thing that I am wondering about is how to best integrate the various git-specific traits. NetBeans already has several VCS plugins, many of which are derived from the same code and have been built to abide to the same UI design principles, and so naturally they have a similar "feel" to them. It seems foolish to not try and respect this when integrating git into the IDE space. Especially, to make it easier for people to try out and switch to git.

One example is the question of how to enable users to work with the index without adding too many obscure UI elements. NetBeans VCS infrastructure and diff engine automatically annotates, which lines in the editor has been changed, modified, or deleted, and allows users to revert on a chunk level. While it seems very practical to extend the annotation bar to allow changes to be staged (I am not sure if this is even possible) it could end up cluttering a concept that many users are already very familiar with.

I am curious what kind of considerations you have done on this topic in your work on EGit.

-- 
Jonas Fonseca