On 08/03/10 22:04, Pieter de Bie wrote:
> just a quick note from me. As you probably have noticed, GitX
> development has been non-existent the last few months. I will try to
> post a more detailed explanation later this week if anyone cares.
> 
> In short, I have no plans about the future of GitX. I would like to
> work on it but lack the time. I haven't been much of a maintainer
> lately and understand completely if anyone wants to take intitiative
> and move this project forward.

Hi everyone,

maybe a quick status update from me as well, as I was active on GitX
right before vanishing (and feel sorry for it). I haven't had much time
in general, and haven't used my Mac for about 5 months at all.
Furthermore I've found it really difficult to think and care about
functionality of a GUI I'm never using myself. This means that I won't
be contributing to GitX any more, but will still follow the mailinglist
and take comfort in the fact that there are still some people out there
willing to develop FOSS even in the very commercialized environment of
Mac-OS programs.

If you're interested, here's a few general things I noticed while
working on GitX:

- People complained about missing functionality. However, they often
  referred to seldom-used features, which are only relevant during
  initial setup (like creating remotes), or features that will never be
  more efficient than do to them in your shell (and I strongly believe
  those features exist). So as a consequence, I'd really focus on the
  kind of features that are hard or impossible to achieve using your
  shell. For me, the best example of this are line-wise staging and the
  automatic refresh we had in testing during a short stretch. That's
  something no other GUI does as well.

- Don't listen to people unless they contribute code or file a bug.
  Really, the web is already full of morons, and the average Mac
  OS-users form a considerable part of that category. I've met some
  skilled people on this ML and in other parts of the Mac-dev-sphere,
  but the difference to the users is just huge. That means that you have
  to adopt a "works-for-me" kind of attitude: If you're fine doing some
  things manually (in your shell) or not at all, then tell them to go to
  hell. I wouldn't read twitter or any blogs comparing GitX to some
  clicki-$35-svn-tool for mac os, the chances of veins on your forehead
  popping are just to great.

- Consider straying away from the official repo! I don't mean to offend
  Pieter, but you've noticed that he's busy and even before development
  consisted of shorts spans of intensive work with long intermissions ;)
  Maybe if someone with some experience and a lot of drive would try to
  start his own fork, the development would get underway again, I'd
  definetely like to see that happen.

- For me, and important aspect of a workflow is reusability on other
  platforms. That might not be important for most of you, but I'm much
  more likely to use a tool if I know I can use it on my Linux and
  Windows machines exactly the same. If you're interested in that kind
  of stuff, consider (also) contributing to gitg ;)

In short: Don't despair! The fact you're interested in actually
developing stuff instead of just buying wisdom from other people shows
that you've got what it takes. Always do things you want to have
yourself first, and then start working on other people's features if you
feel like it. Don't be shy offending people just because they think the
awesome system that is git can be wrapped into a GUI without
understanding it first.

If you've got questions go ahead, I'm still reading this ML ;)

Greetings from Germany,
Jojo

-- 
Johannes Gilger <[email protected]>
http://heipei.net
GPG-Key: 0x42F6DE81
GPG-Fingerprint: BB49 F967 775E BB52 3A81  882C 58EE B178 42F6 DE81

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