GIT user survey

GIT user survey

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

Hi all,
We would like to ask you a few questions about your use of the GIT
version control system. This survey is mainly to understand who is
using GIT, how and why.

The results will be published to the git wiki and discussed on the git
mailing list.

We'll close the survey in two weeks starting from today, 23rd of July.

Please devote a few minutes of your time to fill this simple
questionnaire, it will help a lot the git community to understand your
needs, what you like of git and of course what you don't like  of it.

The survey can be found here:
http://www.survey.net.nz/survey.php?b5659bb2a599d0649871f56b59819c50


Kind regards,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/paolo.ciarrocchi

Re: GIT user survey

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 7/23/06, Paolo Ciarrocchi <paolo.ciarrocchi@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>
> The survey can be found here:
> http://www.survey.net.nz/survey.php?b5659bb2a599d0649871f56b59819c50

If you know people using GIT please forward this message to them,
currently is has been sent to the following projects:
- u-boot
- wine
- cairo
- xmms2
-xcb

regards,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/paolo.ciarrocchi

Re: GIT user survey

[Jakub Narebski]

Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:

> If you know people using GIT please forward this message to them,
> currently is has been sent to the following projects:
> - u-boot
> - wine
> - cairo
> - xmms2
> - xcb

Check out http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitProjects

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Re: GIT user survey

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 7/23/06, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
>
> > If you know people using GIT please forward this message to them,
> > currently is has been sent to the following projects:
> > - u-boot
> > - wine
> > - cairo
> > - xmms2
> > - xcb
>
> Check out http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitProjects

Thanks. I sent out a few emails to other projects.

regards,

-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/paolo.ciarrocchi

Re: GIT user survey

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <4d8e3fd30607230145i2480c20fxb06127c8b0187c98@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>
> If you know people using GIT please forward this message to them,
> currently is has been sent to the following projects:
> - u-boot


Has it? When? I haven't seen anything.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd@denx.de
The thing is, as you progress in the Craft,  you'll  learn  there  is
another rule... When you break rules, break 'em good and hard.
                                    - Terry Pratchett, _Wyrd Sisters_

Re: GIT user survey

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 7/24/06, Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de> wrote:
> In message <4d8e3fd30607230145i2480c20fxb06127c8b0187c98@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
> >
> > If you know people using GIT please forward this message to them,
> > currently is has been sent to the following projects:
> > - u-boot
>
>
> Has it? When? I haven't seen anything.
>

I don't follow the project but I know that NOW it's using GIT, see the
homepage http://u-boot.sourceforge.net/

regards,

-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/paolo.ciarrocchi

Re: GIT user survey

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <4d8e3fd30607241250k3b1a7768yb27653750ae921b3@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>
> > > If you know people using GIT please forward this message to them,
> > > currently is has been sent to the following projects:
> > > - u-boot
> >
> > Has it? When? I haven't seen anything.
> 
> I don't follow the project but I know that NOW it's using GIT, see the
> homepage http://u-boot.sourceforge.net/

Of course we use git; that's not the question.

I understood your posting such that you have sent a "GIT user survey"
to the U-Boot mailing list:  you  wrote:  "is  [typo  for  `it'  ?  -
referring to Subject:, i. e. `GIT user survey'?] has been sent to the
following projects..."

I wanted to make clear that nothing  has  been  sent  to  the  U-Boot
project. At least I haven't seen anything, nor can I find anything in
the archives.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd@denx.de
"I've seen it. It's rubbish."          - Marvin the Paranoid Android

Re: GIT user survey

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 7/24/06, Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de> wrote:
> In message <4d8e3fd30607241250k3b1a7768yb27653750ae921b3@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
> >
> > > > If you know people using GIT please forward this message to them,
> > > > currently is has been sent to the following projects:
> > > > - u-boot
> > >
> > > Has it? When? I haven't seen anything.
> >
> > I don't follow the project but I know that NOW it's using GIT, see the
> > homepage http://u-boot.sourceforge.net/
>
> Of course we use git; that's not the question.

Doh :-)

> I understood your posting such that you have sent a "GIT user survey"
> to the U-Boot mailing list:  you  wrote:  "is  [typo  for  `it'  ?  -
> referring to Subject:, i. e. `GIT user survey'?] has been sent to the
> following projects..."

Yep, that was a typo.
And yes, I sent an email to u-boot-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Is that the correct email address?

> I wanted to make clear that nothing  has  been  sent  to  the  U-Boot
> project. At least I haven't seen anything, nor can I find anything in
> the archives.

Can you please FW my original email to the list?
Thanks.

regards,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/paolo.ciarrocchi

Re: GIT user survey

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 7/23/06, Paolo Ciarrocchi <paolo.ciarrocchi@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> We would like to ask you a few questions about your use of the GIT
> version control system. This survey is mainly to understand who is
> using GIT, how and why.
>
> The results will be published to the git wiki and discussed on the git
> mailing list.
>
> We'll close the survey in two weeks starting from today, 23rd of July.
>
> Please devote a few minutes of your time to fill this simple
> questionnaire, it will help a lot the git community to understand your
> needs, what you like of git and of course what you don't like  of it.
>
> The survey can be found here:
> http://www.survey.net.nz/survey.php?b5659bb2a599d0649871f56b59819c50

Thanks a lot to all the people that already filled the questionnaire.
We received 89 full filled questionnaires but we can do better, if you
didn't fill it please do it before the 6th of August.

Thanks.

regards,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/paolo.ciarrocchi

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

[Jörg W Mittag]

Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
> On 7/23/06, Paolo Ciarrocchi <paolo.ciarrocchi@gmail.com> wrote:
>> We would like to ask you a few questions about your use of the GIT
>> version control system. This survey is mainly to understand who is
>> using GIT, how and why.
> Thanks a lot to all the people that already filled the questionnaire.
> We received 89 full filled questionnaires but we can do better, if you
> didn't fill it please do it before the 6th of August.

Okay, I thought a bit about filling out that survey, but I couldn't
because it didn't really fit my needs.  After all, it's a Git *user*
survey and I'm only a *wannabe* user.

So, why am I only a wannabe Git user (and a frustrated Subversion
user) even though I like Git very much?  Well, there's a couple of
reasons (beware: this rant should have really been a blog post, but I
don't have a blog ...; also, being a rant, this post may contain
oversimplification, overgeneralization and overexaggeration.  Please,
don't feel offended and also keep in mind that I'm not a native
speaker.).

The most important reason why I'm not using Git is probably that I'm
the wrong kind of user: Git is a source code(1) management system for
Linux(2) developers(3) and I am

  (1) not managing source code, 
  (2) not using Linux and 
  (3) not a developer.
  
Please note that there's nothing actually wrong with that---you can't
drive screws with a hammer and you can't make coffee with a
screwdriver but that doesn't mean that the hammer or the screwdriver
are buggy, it just means you have either the wrong problem or the
wrong tool.

So, I don't really know whether the fact that Git doesn't support my
operating environment and my workflow is (a) a problem with Git being
too specialized or (b) a problem with me choosing the wrong tool.
This is probably actually the most important question I have, because
if the answer is (a) I just need to wait some more until Git matures,
but if the answer is (b) I need to forget about Git and start looking
for another tool.

In my opinion, version control needs to integrate and really blend
into the operating environment and the workflow people use, because
otherwise, if it *doesn't* integrate but forces them to change their
operating environment, their workflow or their habits, people will get
lazy.  I know I would.  And being lazy about version control is even
worse than not having any version control at all, just as with backups
it gives you a false sense of security.

In my case the operating environment is the Windows Explorer or
Eclipse and my workflow is basically dragging and dropping files with
the mouse.  I can do just that with TortoiseSVN and Subclipse without
having to change the way I normally work.  With Git I would constantly
need to switch back and forth between Explorer or Eclipse and Cygwin.
That is, if I actually get Git compiled and up and running *at all*.
(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.)

Don't get me wrong: Git is very nice.  Its similarity to a Unix
filesystem and the similarity of its UI to popular Unix command line
utilities means that it actually integrates perfectly with the Unix
shell, which also means that it integrates perfectly with the workflow
of people who mainly work in a Unix shell.  I'm sometimes using Git in
Linux where I mainly work from the command line and it's absolutely
amazing!  You have everything you would expect from your regular
environment: cat, diff, ls, tar, grep, mv, rm and even fsck!

But that's not the only operating environment, and it's certainly not
the one most widely used.  In order to be universally usable, Git
needs to also integrate with the Windows Explorer, MacOS Finder,
Konqueror, Nautilus, Eclipse and Visual Studio (among others).  It
needs to integrate with project management tools like Trac or Collaboa
and in order to do that it probably needs complete high-quality native
language bindings for Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, ...

Okay, let's answer two questions from the survey:

| Q20. What would you most like to see improved about GIT? (features,
|        bugs, plugins, documentation, ...)

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.

Number 2 would probably be providing the same level of integration for
Eclipse.

| Q21. If you want to see GIT more widely used, what do you think we
|        could do to make this happen?

What I think is most lacking is the ecosystem *around* Git, which is
actually not very surprising, considering that Git is still fairly
young compared to e.g. CVS and Subversion.  With "ecosystem" I mean
things like public repository hosting (currently it's mostly CVS
and/or Subversion and some Arch), integration in IDEs (e.g. Eclipse,
Visual Studio), project management software (e.g. Trac, Collaboa) and
so on.

The general theme is probably: make Git more seamless for more types
of users on more operating systems.

I currently use Subversion.  I hate Subversion.  I constanly hit the
limitations of the centralized model, and I hit them *very hard* and
*very often*.  I would *love* to migrate away as soon as possible.
There's only two reasons why I use Subversion: because I can install
it with three mouse clicks and because I can use it with three mouse
clicks.

Please, make those reasons go away.

Thank you for bearing with me through this long rant.

jwm

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.

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

[Pavel Roskin]

Hello, Jörg!

On Tue, 2006-08-01 at 03:45 +0200, Jörg W Mittag wrote:

> In my case the operating environment is the Windows Explorer or
> Eclipse and my workflow is basically dragging and dropping files with
> the mouse.  I can do just that with TortoiseSVN and Subclipse without
> having to change the way I normally work.

I understand you don't really care about changesets (i.e. committing
several files at once and recording it as a single operation).  In that
case, would git-cvsserver satisfy your needs?  Would it make any
difference if there were a similar Subversion emulator?  Would DAV
support make any difference?

> With Git I would constantly
> need to switch back and forth between Explorer or Eclipse and Cygwin.

With git-cvsserver, you can run it and forget about it.  The rest would
be handled through the CVS interface.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin

Re: Why I love GIT but use Subversion

[Junio C Hamano]

Jörg W Mittag <Joerg.Mittag@Web.De> writes:

> Please, make those reasons go away.

These are all reasonable wishes.

The core level of git (which is written in C) is designed to be
usable as a building block for platform native IDE.  The primary
audience of git so far has been POSIX envirnoment, and the
command line interface we have in core git was one acceptable
form of "platform native IDE".  I know that is not a usual form
of IDE in some other world (most notably in MS circles).

I do not speak for others on this mailing list, but given the
background of how git came about into existence, which pretty
much defines the majority of the habitants of this mailing list,
I doubt there are many people who know git well enough and have
enough experience and motivation to implement "platform native
IDE" for MS platform.  Certainly I cannot imagine Linus and/or
myself doing Windows GUI programming to make git integrate into
MS environment seamlessly.  You probably are a lot more familiar
and qualified to implement such than myself.

So please step forward, enlist MS comrades, and start hacking,
if you want MS native git.  If you need help in understanding
the core git data structures, algorithms, and functions, I may
well be able to help you.  If you have difficulties interfacing
with Visual Studio on the other hand that is not something I can
help you with, although some others on the list might.

> Thank you for bearing with me through this long rant.

Thank *you* for sharing these thoughts.

Re: Why I love GIT but use Subversion

[Martin Langhoff]

On 8/1/06, Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> wrote:
> So please step forward, enlist MS comrades, and start hacking,

I don't know how mature the libification of git is, in terms of
working correctly on Windows without a full cygwin environemnt (but
perhaps with the cygwin dll). If it builds and works reasonably well
just linking to the dll, perhaps we should enlist the
TortoiseCVS/TortoiseSVN hackers to replace the SVN bindings with GIT
bindings.

Of course, that'd give us a simplified UI, but it'd get the ball rolling.

cheers,


martin

Re: Why I love GIT but use Subversion

[Jakub Narebski]

Jörg W Mittag wrote:

> Number 2 would probably be providing the same level of integration for
> Eclipse.

Git Eclipse plugin is in the works, currently in very early alpha stages:
  http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/InterfacesFrontendsAndTools#Eclipse

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

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

[Johannes Schindelin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 2921 bytes --]

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".

> (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

> 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!).

> 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

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

[Martin Langhoff]

On 8/1/06, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> And you _can_ do more: like Junio said, ask people you know who work on
> Windows to help...

Indeed, I think these guys need to hear from Jorg, see the "Mailing list" link:

   http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/


;-)

I know it's cheeky, but if you write a similarly polite rant/wishlist
to the nice TortoiseSVN developers and they are interested, we can, as
Junio said, help them out with GIT specifics.

cheers,


martin

Re: Why I love GIT but use Subversion

[Noel Grandin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1366 bytes --]

Hi

They would probably be quite willing to have someone fork TortoiseSVN
and make a TortoiseGIT, which would save a lot of the hassle with
creating an installer, finding the WindowsExplorer hook APIs, etc, etc,
from scratch.

Especially since TortoiseSVN started by forking TortoiseCVS.

Regards,
   Noel Grandin

Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On 8/1/06, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
>> And you _can_ do more: like Junio said, ask people you know who work on
>> Windows to help...
>
> Indeed, I think these guys need to hear from Jorg, see the "Mailing
> list" link:
>
>   http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
>
>
> ;-)
>
> I know it's cheeky, but if you write a similarly polite rant/wishlist
> to the nice TortoiseSVN developers and they are interested, we can, as
> Junio said, help them out with GIT specifics.
>
> cheers,
>
>
> martin
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>


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

[Alex Riesen]

On 8/1/06, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> And for the notoriously difficult part: why not just bundle a cygwin
> environment, stripped-down to fit just the needs of git?

Because it's hard to get it not to conflict with existing or following
cygwin installtion.

Re: GIT user survey

[Jakub Narebski]

Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:

> We'll close the survey in two weeks starting from today, 23rd of July.

Will you be closing survey and publishing results (e.g. on GitWiki) soon,
or would you wait for more answers?

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Re: GIT user survey

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On 8/11/06, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
>
> > We'll close the survey in two weeks starting from today, 23rd of July.
>
> Will you be closing survey and publishing results (e.g. on GitWiki) soon,
> or would you wait for more answers?
>

Ok, I closed the survey.
115 responses, a lot more then what I expected :)

But I have a big problem, my personal workstation died so I cannot
work on the raw results.
I uploaded the txt file here:
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/gitsurvey.txt.zip

Anybody want to work on the responses?

Thanks.

-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/paolo.ciarrocchi