Code.Google.com now supports git

http://code.google.com/

by pixelbeat • 15 years ago

445 77 15 years ago

code.google.com

Project administrators can now switch their source repo to git (or mercurial or subversion). From the page:

"This chooses the type of version control repository used to store the project source code and wiki. Modifying this setting will not delete existing Git, Mercurial, and Subversion data, but it will change the way the site displays your project's contents."

muloka• 15 years ago

Hoorah! This is great news.

swasheck• 15 years ago

finally.

cdibona3• 15 years ago

I'd say a better link is to the issue we marked 'fixed' :

http://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=2454

Or to the project creation page:

http://code.google.com/hosting/createProject

We hope you like it.

pasbesoin• 15 years ago

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Google Project Hosting is a fast, reliable, and easy open source hosting service. Google Project Hosting gives you:

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    + An issue tracker and project wiki that are simple,
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    + Starring and update streams that make it easy to keep
      track of projects and developers that you care about
*

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jjm7• 15 years ago

How about linking Google code to Google+. Where projects have their own 'Project+' personality and what not. You could even have a 'downloads' like 'Photos' for all the people who don't seem to like GitHub (don't know why but ok).

I have tons of more suggestions... of course they will need to be validated :-P

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cdibona3• 15 years ago

Bring em on! Most of the work on the site is bringing some needed aspects to the fore, but the success of the + launch has spawned some really interesting ideas on how we can help users of the site share aspects of their projects to +.

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dave1010uk• 15 years ago

I got an email alert on that issue and all it said was resolution changed to fixed, with no comment. I thought it could be a mistake so I went to code.google.com looking for some kind of announcement and found nothing, then finally found the create project page and saw the drop-down with git in it!

Thanks for all the hard work you guys have put into it. I think many people don't realise how much work goes into something when you deploy it on a Google scale.

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cdibona3• 15 years ago

The team has done some good work and have indeed been working hard. They do appreciate the recognition for sure.

We talked about how we should break the news that we supported git. Marking the bug fixed was a good approach to it as then we knew those that cared enough to click on the little star on the issue would know, and that would be a pretty good start.

A few people noticed in the 1/2 hour or so between the launch and the issue change, so that was funny to watch. We'll do a formal post later. Right now we're mostly watching and seeing what happens so we can make sure the site is in good shape.

So....try it out and let us know how you like it.

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kierank• 15 years ago

Any chance of fixing this bug?

http://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=840#c6

It's totally bizzare to get other people's Google Code traffic data in your Google Analytics.

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dminor2• 15 years ago

So does the backend use Java Git, or some specialized version of C git?

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tonfa• 15 years ago

Why only those two alternatives?

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dborowitz• 15 years ago

Neither: Dulwich.

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seanmccann• 15 years ago

Are there really any reasons to use Google Code when GitHub is kicking so much ass?

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jhawk28• 15 years ago

Its a distributed system. Use them both if you want. Each have their strengths.

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mindcrime• 15 years ago

Its a distributed system. Use them both if you want. Each have their strengths.

This is what I do. I like the way Google Code is oriented around giving you more of a "project" view, so I have a Google Code page for my projects, but I replaced the "Source" link with the link to the corresponding Github repo. I treat the Github repo as the primary repo for development, but I do use git-svn to push the code to Google Code SVN as well.. I figure it makes a convenient "read only" mirror for anybody who just wants to check the code out, play with it, whatever, but who isn't really interested in contributing... or for people who don't know how to use Git yet.

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shareme• 15 years ago

so is bitbucket and bitbucket has unlimited space if you are under 5 users per project

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MatthewPhillips3• 15 years ago

I see it also still supports horrible UI. Pass.

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telemachos• 15 years ago

Unhelpfully snarky way to put that. Why not say "Getting Git is great. I hope that the UI is improved soon too."?

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beder• 15 years ago

Or even better, explain what about the UI could be improved. I've been using Google Code for several years, and I love the UI.

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sid0• 15 years ago

Google Code and Git are actually perfect for each other -- both have horrible UIs.

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cookiecaper• 15 years ago

Lack of git support is one of the major things that has prevented me from using google code. I'm happy to hear it's resolved. :)

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grandalf• 15 years ago

Waiting to get invited to a Google Code drinkup.

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shazow• 15 years ago

That's great, but I'm still slowly moving my projects over to Github.

1. I get much more engagement from random developers on Github. On Github, random people will fork and add features, do code reviews and leave comments. All of these things are technically possible on Google Code but nobody does it—probably due to the usability but possibly also a cultural problem. Github has a strong culture of collaboration because they strongly emphasize it in the user's experience.

2. Managing forks and pull requests is easier on Github. I want my life as a maintainer to be as easy as possible.

3. Notifications: For a long time, Google Code notifications simply didn't work for me, at all. I'd randomly stumble on one of my older projects and noticed 5 new issues opened that I didn't know about, I felt like I betrayed my users for 6+ months. Now they seem like they do, but some trust has been lost.

4. Multiple choices of documentation markup on Github is appealing.

5. The code browsing feature on Google Code feels like its own application. When you open a Github project, first thing you see is the code. On Google Code it takes 2 more clicks (that's 1 more click than Bitbucket). Think about what's the most important thing here—the code, and Github got it right.

As far as version control goes, I'm happy with either Git or Mercurial.

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sussman• 15 years ago

(Speaking purely for myself here.) I agree the code is important, but I think a cohesive project is more important. Github presents itself as a giant pastebin for code, with "projects" bolted on. Google Code presents projects first, and puts the code at an even level with every other part: bugtracker, downloads, wiki.

(That said, I agree pull requests would be cool.)

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gte910h• 15 years ago

While I agree with you on the facts of projects vs code, I actually LOVE that the PROJECT isn't on github. It makes the wily nilly use/patches from 3rd parties so much easier. It makes Google Code feel a little too sourceforgey.

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andos• 15 years ago

That's the problem with Google Code, in my opinion. It tries to be both a landing page and a project manager for my software when I'd rather take care of the former myself. It ends up sucking at both, unfortunately.

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jjm7• 15 years ago

- Basically the front page of any google project is like the readme in github or bitbucket. Some repos use github pages for a full site. This makes it like a google code site and better as you can actually host content.

-Issues? Github has that. -Wiki? Same.

I don't see anything feature wise that Google brings to the table that GitHub or Bitbucket doesn't out of the box or manually with even greater control.

I really want to understand what the issues are, help me understand.

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eliben• 15 years ago

Agreed, and yet implementing the features that make Github (& Bitbucket) what it is doesn't sound terribly difficult, and most importantly won't ruin the other "project-y" features of Google code.

Personally my projects are still on Google code, but Github is becoming more and more tempting.

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CrLf4• 15 years ago

Why doesn't anyone ever think about the users? You know, the ones that just want to grab some binaries and do stuff?

In the "old days", projects would have a webpage with some instructions, screenshots and downloadable binaries. The effort required to do this would pay off in terms of polish and would attract more users.

Today, people find out about this supposedly nice piece of software, and proceed to find only a source file listing, no documentation (not even a half-decent README), no screenshots and, worst of all, the need to build from source. I'm a technical person with a fair amount of curiosity for these things, and I find myself frequently bummed out and give up when I see a link to github.

Even when these "artifacts" exist, just the look of the site is enough to put regular users off.

Sharing code is not only about dumping a source tree online. It's about polishing all that surrounds it and makes it a "product". Without users a source tree has no value.

Frankly, the current situation is making the open-source community more and more closed in on itself. The first step for irrelevance.

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luigi2• 15 years ago

I've never seen this. Any concrete examples?

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mnutt3• 15 years ago

In Github's case, most of the projects there are libraries and the users are developers. The people who like Github probably expect the first thing they see when they show up to a project to be the code. And I'd wager that for many developers, checking out the repo is quicker and more convenient than downloading a tarball.

Github's UI admittedly doesn't make for a great experience for someone browsing around looking for software to download. A project that is trying to appeal to regular users should set up a wiki page, or even better, use Github Pages to build a site.

Though, I really hate it when I follow a link to a Rails app on Github that left the default "Welcome to Rails" readme.

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jjm7• 15 years ago

GitHub and Bitbucket is for code, and for people to interact with other coders.

You really don't go to GitHub and Bitbucket to download your favorite binary. That is what sourceforge, Top100 xyz, and Cnet is for.

The projects that are popular have people willing to help (read: contribute) to the project in classic open source engagement.

On top of that, GitHub & BitBucket enable the single/small group maintainer to write a readme that gets displayed.

I use both.

If your fav project doesn't have Mom+Pop friendly page with <download here> by all means please fork + contribute.

See:

http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/

http://mbostock.github.com/d3/

http://github.com/jquery/jquery

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mikeash• 15 years ago

Whenever I go to download an open source project, I end up on a web site built for it which has exactly what you mention. GitHub doesn't have those, but GitHub isn't intended to be the first page the end user finds either. GitHub is for developers, and any project that wants to be accessible to non-developers should set up a separate page as well. Nothing wrong with that from what I can see.

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Xurinos• 15 years ago

Minor quibble, but I share your concern. It is more of a developer choice rather than a github limitation. github supports pod format, README, and I have no idea what else, displayed on the front page of a project. You can also supply a link to a project page. But what do I expect? Same as you -- main feature description, screenshots (please), and additional links to documentation and examples.

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pstadler• 15 years ago

I think the strength of GitHub is lying in it's focus on code. And that's the point of a code hosting website, isn't it? You visit a GitHub repository... what's the first thing you see? Instead of a blank page with some numbers and a project summary you're directly looking at the core of every project: its code. The presentation of the readme file is just one more thing which speaks for GitHub. Your project summary is integrated into the actual process of development because it's a part of it.

Plus, you really get this feeling of activity while browsing projects and code on GitHub. Google Code and SourceForge seem so abandoned in comparison.

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kpanghmc• 15 years ago

While I agree with the sentiment in this thread that developers aren't going to be flocking over from GitHub anytime soon, at the very least this should help keep GitHub motivated (not that they've given us any reason for concern thus far). Competition is a good thing.

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riobard• 15 years ago

Does anyone know if it supports authentication using SSH public key instead of another password?

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zerosanity2• 15 years ago

Google Code's UI needs a lot of work. I just created a test project to try our git functionality. I closed my browser and went to a meeting. After an hour or so I come back, open my browser, and type in code.google.com. I get a nice page but no links to "my projects" or the like. After searching through links on the page I finally had to give up and had to type in the project URL (http://code.google.com/p/myproject) from memory.

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nolliesnom6• 15 years ago

ck the "My Favorites" link in upper right

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zerosanity2• 15 years ago

After further investigation I found out the "My Favorites" link doesn't show projects that were marked for deletion but not yet deleted.

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walrusty• 15 years ago

> Google Code's UI needs a lot of work.

I disagree. I think it's a nice, simple, tidy interface in contrast to github's flashy one.

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MrMan• 15 years ago

I for one really like google code.

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flocial• 15 years ago

If they allowed private repos under your google data quota it would be a github killer because UI doesn't matter then and github is overpriced for that unless you throw all your code in one repo.

Code.Google.com now supports git

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