[Chicago] DVCS Workflows?

Martin Maney maney at two14.net
Wed Nov 19 21:01:01 CET 2008


On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 01:39:00PM -0600, Cosmin Stejerean wrote:
> Github's social features only work when other forks are also on Github. The

Yeah, it's another silo.

> github gem which gives you a command line utility by the same name provides
> some features that I think make Github even more interesting, like showing
> you any other forks of the project that have commits that you don't. This

That might be interesting.  Sounds like something I've not stumbled
across yet.

> really enables a truly distributed way to hack on an open source project
> because I don't have to wait for the main project to accept patches, and I
> also don't need to resort to the manual process of tracking down interesting
> patches on websites and mailing lists and having to main them locally
> myself.

As long as it's all on github.  Still, that is kinda nice... but you
still need to visit (or, at least, subscribe) to some separate service
for the bug tracker or mailing list or etc.  I'm seeing a lot of stuff
in the code.google silo that's just using the bug tracker, with a
pointer on the home page to github (and vice versa, of course). 
Personally, I'd take a more integrated tracker + repo over github's
"social" features... as long as I didn't have to make the repo
Subversion.  A few years back I thought Subversion was the best thing
since sliced bread, but it suffers from feet of CVS.  :-(

> Also, the ability to watch a project you're interested in and having their
> commits show up in your news feed is pretty neat, and a good way to follow
> what's new in a project you find interesting.

What news feed?  Something I have to poll github for?  I'd really
rather have a commit mailing list or some such, thanks.

-- 
Pruning and restoring a blighted tree is almost an impossible task.
The same is true of blighted computer programs.  Restoring a structure
that has been distorted by patches and deletions, or fixing a program
with a seriously weak algorithm isn't worth the time.  The best that
can result is a long, inefficient, unintelligible program that defies
maintenance.  The worst that could result, we dare not think of.
 -- Henry Ledgard (trying not to think of Windows, you think?)



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