Re: Why I love GIT but use Subversion (was: GIT user survey)

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Aug 1, 2006, 10:13 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0608011201030.17230@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
In-Reply-To: <1prv3rw6ldo9s$.dlg@jwmittag.my-fqdn.de>

Hi,

On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Jörg W Mittag wrote:

> beware: this rant should have really been a blog post, but I don't have 
> a blog ...;

This is the most polite rant I saw in a long time (including my own rants ;-).

> (a) a problem with Git being too specialized or (b) a problem with me 
> choosing the wrong tool.

Definitely (a). But I might add "still".

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> (Is there any unwritten rule in Git development that says that new 
> features are only accepted if they add a new dependency on a new 
> programming language?  Currently Git is implemented in C, POSIX sh, 
> Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk and C++ (if you include QGit) and I've already seen 
> some Ruby code posted to the mailing list.)

Funny, this is also _my_ pet peeve. Although for different reasons: I do not so much mind the dependency as the inconvenience with having different programming styles, and often having to build the basic library functions in every of these languages. Also, some people do not speak Perl or Bash or Python

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> The most pressing need for me would be a native Windows port.  Where
> "native" means:
> 
>  - an installer package, 
>  - integration with the Windows Explorer, 
>  - handling of different line-ending encodings and 
>  - addressing the fact that things like SSH clients, diff, patch, 
>      merge, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, Bash and so on are usually not part 
>      of a standard Windows installation and are also notoriously 
>      difficult to install.

Let's see: the installer should not be a problem. (Several free options come to mind).

Integration with the Windows Explorer is a bit tricky: first, most of the Linux cracks have not worked with Windows APIs, and there is also the problem that you need to convert the file names from/to braindead MS why-not-put-a-colon-into-absolute-filenames names.

You do not need handling of different line-ending encodings _as long_ as you have the same throughout your project.

And for the notoriously difficult part: why not just bundle a cygwin environment, stripped-down to fit just the needs of git?

Of course, it would be a bit nicer if we had a MinGW32 port, and in fact, I played with it a little. But the sad truth is: Windows lacks so many of the good features of POSIX. It is not a project for just one afternoon to make it run (although I admit that I have it running a "git-log -p" successfully!).

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> PS: I am well aware of the fact that Git is free software and that I
> could fix all those issues myself.  However, the truth is, I can't.
> I'm stupid.  I'm not a programmer.  So, please don't take this as a
> demand or a request, merely a humble suggestion by a humble wannabe
> user, whom you are free to ignore.

Hey, you may be not a programmer, but what you just did was very valuable: write about the problems you have with git.

And you _can_ do more: like Junio said, ask people you know who work on Windows to help...

Ciao, Dscho