Re: Collabarating Code with Crossrider

[Mushon Zer-Aviv]

Thanks Shmueli,

I think the "publish from GIT" scheme is a smart one.

You might also want to add "publish from SVN" for the less developed ;)

David? Dan? Do you want to take the lead on this?

Shmeueli, let's continue this thread on the dev list (rather than the user list)

And thanks for the welcomes, we're equally excited for this collaboration.

וגם פורים שמח

:)

Mushon Zer-Aviv
Shual.com - design studio
§  ShiftSpace.org - an opensource layer above any website
¶  Mushon.com - blog
× @mushon - Tweet me

On 3/18/11 12:23 PM, shmuelix wrote:

Hey ShitfSpace,

First I would like to let you know how excited I am about ShiftSpace
joining the Crossrider community.
Our vision and goal is to change the way developers are writing
extensions which will work seamlessly on all browsers.

As I understand you are many developers working on one project, and
what i'd like to know is what is the best way for you to work with
Crossrider Apps.

The App Edit Panel does not support collaboration. Many users can log
in and view the app, and also save it, but  they will step on each
other toes, making changes by other people obsolete. In the future we
plan to support multi users app editing as part of our editing
platform, but as we are a bootstrap startup with limited resource we
want to concentrate on other, more basic, things right now.

Some quick solution suggestions i'd like to mention:

1. Open one account and make sure the code is updated there by one
person at a time only.
2. GIT -  We can define a git lib structure and you will give us a URL
to clone. We will give you the Crossrider public key to auth on your
end. So all you got to do is click a 'Publish From GIT' button from
the Edit Panel, and on the server side we'll use the code from your
git repo. (same goes for images not just code). -- this is not yet
implemented, just a suggestion for you to think about.


What I would like to hear from you is suggestions for more ways to
pull this off and what will be the best solution for you.

Thanks for the input, and welcome aboard to the Crossrider community.

[Dan Phiffer]

Howdy,

(Moving the thread back to the dev list.)

I've only had a chance to poke around a tiny bit, but the site seems very straightforward. I'm excited to play around with it more!

As for the collaboration issue, I think the simplest thing might just be to provide some way to point any textarea code input at a URL instead. That's an approach that userscripts.org takes and it's one that would integrate seamlessly with GitHub (pointing at the raw view of a file), Trac, and probably others.

Thanks for working so quickly to get all this set up for us, I will definitely look around some more this weekend.

Best,
-Dan

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[Mushon Zer-Aviv]

Correct me if I'm wrong here Dan,

but the solution you're offering would not allow to bundle binary files (such as images) within the extension and would require them to be hotliinked/cached.

I agree just pointing at a textfile will be a simpler solution, but we should probably weight the pluses vs. the minuses here. I have the feeling a full Git repo (/branch) might still be a better way to go.

Mushon Zer-Aviv
Shual.com - design studio
§  ShiftSpace.org - an opensource layer above any website
¶  Mushon.com - blog
× @mushon - Tweet me

[Dan Phiffer]

On Mar 18, 2011, at 10:47 AM, Mushon Zer-Aviv wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong here Dan,
> but the solution you're offering would not allow to bundle binary files (such as images) within the extension and would require them to be hotliinked/cached.

Yeah, I guess it'd be kind of a hassle to identify a bunch of resources by URL (again, Greasemonkey @resource-style), but from my initial explorations this isn't a feature currently offered by Crossrider. Or maybe I just missed that somehow?

Alas, I used an impossible-to-remember 20 character password for my Crossrider login and I don't have access to it at work... but I remember the web interface involving basically two textareas for the "userscript" and "background worker."

-Dan

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[David Nolen]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:11 AM, Dan Phiffer <d...@phiffer.org> wrote:

On Mar 18, 2011, at 10:47 AM, Mushon Zer-Aviv wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong here Dan,
> but the solution you're offering would not allow to bundle binary files (such as images) within the extension and would require them to be hotliinked/cached.

Yeah, I guess it'd be kind of a hassle to identify a bunch of resources by URL (again, Greasemonkey @resource-style), but from my initial explorations this isn't a feature currently offered by Crossrider. Or maybe I just missed that somehow?

Alas, I used an impossible-to-remember 20 character password for my Crossrider login and I don't have access to it at work... but I remember the web interface involving basically two textareas for the "userscript" and "background worker."

-Dan

Dan,

It would be great if the rest of us could get the password off-list once you get it.

David 

[Dan Phiffer]

Oops, haha, I just read the line below that. I missed it somehow when I signed up!

On Mar 17, 2011, at 7:12 PM, Koby Menachemi wrote:

> It's one time registration invite so it's important only one of you will create the account and share the login info of ShiftSpace with the others (no collaboration tools yet :( )

Sorry about that...

-Dan

On Mar 22, 2011, at 11:29 AM, Dan Phiffer wrote:

>
> On Mar 22, 2011, at 11:24 AM, David Nolen wrote:
>
>> It would be great if the rest of us could get the password off-list once you get it.
>

> Are we limited to just one account? This link still works, I just assumed you guys would sign up on your own:
>
> http://crossrider.com/beta/signup?twitter=shiftspace&key=0ef6e142cf450d7c25f81
>
> -Dan

[Koby Menachemi]

You have only one account for ShiftSpace (as we don't have group/users mechanism yet) but each one of you can create his own account for testing purposes. We will provide you as many invites/accounts as needed.

K.

[Shmueli Ahdut]

Guys,

The invitation links are personal and per twitter account.

The most efficient way will be to follow the instructions on 

http://crossrider.com/beta (follow @crossriderapps + twit invite request).

It will be easier for us to DM you each one your personal invitation URL. 

(and will also help us a bit to spread the word about Crossrider ;) )

But either way, 

if you wish to get your invite code personally via email, then drop me an email with your twitter account

and i'll generate it for you manually.

Thanks.

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 5:30 PM, Dan Phiffer <d...@phiffer.org> wrote:

[Dan Phiffer]

I guess my take on all this is that collaboration is kind of a hard nut to crack, and I'd rather depend on a tool like GitHub than expect Crossrider to solve it in its own particular way. Not being so coupled to particular tools like GitHub or Twitter just seems a better approach to me (in the spirit of compatibility, lock-in, etc.). But I guess it's all a matter of taste ultimately.

Crossrider folks, is it okay to try out your tool for things other than ShiftSpace? I guess that anticipation was part of why I typed in "dphiffer" instead of "shiftspace" as my user account... ShiftSpace is just one of what I would hope could be a variety of things I could use this for.

Best,
-Dan

[Dan Phiffer]

On Mar 22, 2011, at 11:24 AM, David Nolen wrote:

> It would be great if the rest of us could get the password off-list once you get it.

Are we limited to just one account? This link still works, I just assumed you guys would sign up on your own:

http://crossrider.com/beta/signup?twitter=shiftspace&key=0ef6e142cf450d7c25f81

-Dan

[Dan Phiffer]

Sorry for all the emails, I think part of my last message was confusing...

On Mar 22, 2011, at 12:11 PM, Dan Phiffer wrote:

> I guess my take on all this is that collaboration is kind of a hard nut to crack, and I'd rather depend on a tool like GitHub than expect Crossrider to solve it in its own particular way.

The part above is with respect to the "how does a team work on the same code tree" problem. This is more directly relevant to ShiftSpace I think. What follows below is more theoretical, how I would see this type of thing functioning ideally (grain of salt, etc.).

The part below is about how to handle identity and integration from the Crossrider side of things. I'd rather enter a URL that could point at a private Trac install (for example) instead of being tied into the particular service options GitHub has to offer.

Same idea with Twitter and invites -- a lot of developers may not find Twitter to be their thing, opting for Identi.ca or something as an alternative.

> Not being so coupled to particular tools like GitHub or Twitter just seems a better approach to me (in the spirit of compatibility, lock-in, etc.). But I guess it's all a matter of taste ultimately.

Best,
-Dan

[Mushon Zer-Aviv]

Shmuelix said:

Some quick solution suggestions i'd like to mention:

1. Open one account and make sure the code is updated there by one
person at a time only.
2. GIT -  We can define a git lib structure and you will give us a URL
to clone. We will give you the Crossrider public key to auth on your
end. So all you got to do is click a 'Publish From GIT' button from
the Edit Panel, and on the server side we'll use the code from your
git repo. (same goes for images not just code). -- this is not yet
implemented, just a suggestion for you to think about.

GIT > GITHUB

The repo does not need to sit on Github. A few months ago David and I were hacking offline on a plane using one that run on a USB flashdrive.

So while I share the sentiment of what you proposed, this is not a classic lock-in. (while it does choose one collaboration technology over the other)

Mushon Zer-Aviv
Shual.com - design studio
§  ShiftSpace.org - an opensource layer above any website
¶  Mushon.com - blog
× @mushon - Tweet me

[Dan Phiffer]

On Mar 22, 2011, at 12:30 PM, Mushon Zer-Aviv wrote:

> So while I share the sentiment of what you proposed, this is not a classic lock-in. (while it does choose one collaboration technology over the other)

Right, maybe it's a "choice being made for me" not so much a lock-in per se. I stand by my feedback, even if it's not the majority opinion.

-Dan

> On 3/22/11 6:23 PM, Dan Phiffer wrote:
>> Sorry for all the emails, I think part of my last message was confusing...
>>
>> On Mar 22, 2011, at 12:11 PM, Dan Phiffer wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I guess my take on all this is that collaboration is kind of a hard nut to crack, and I'd rather depend on a tool like GitHub than expect Crossrider to solve it in its own particular way.
>>>
>> The part above is with respect to the "how does a team work on the same code tree" problem. This is more directly relevant to ShiftSpace I think. What follows below is more theoretical, how I would see this type of thing functioning ideally (grain of salt, etc.).
>>
>> The part below is about how to handle identity and integration from the Crossrider side of things. I'd rather enter a URL that could point at a private Trac install (for example) instead of being tied into the particular service options GitHub has to offer.
>>
>> Same idea with Twitter and invites -- a lot of developers may not find Twitter to be their thing, opting for Identi.ca or something as an alternative.
>>
>>
>>> Not being so coupled to particular tools like GitHub or Twitter just seems a better approach to me (in the spirit of compatibility, lock-in, etc.). But I guess it's all a matter of taste ultimately.
>>>
>> Best,
>> -Dan
>>
>>
>

[David Nolen]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 12:37 PM, Dan Phiffer <d...@phiffer.org> wrote:

On Mar 22, 2011, at 12:30 PM, Mushon Zer-Aviv wrote:

> So while I share the sentiment of what you proposed, this is not a classic lock-in. (while it does choose one collaboration technology over the other)

Right, maybe it's a "choice being made for me" not so much a lock-in per se. I stand by my feedback, even if it's not the majority opinion.

-Dan

hg-git and git-svn are pretty useful in these scenarios where you'd rather use something else but but are willing to expose git access to others. It's not really an either/or story these days.

David 

[Dan Phiffer]

Don't get me wrong, I like using GitHub for many things including ShiftSpace. One task on my todo list is setting up a git-svn cross link for my WordPress JSON API plugin so that it can be forked, get pull requests, etc.

This is just me invoking Postel's law...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_Principle

-Dan

>
> David

[Mushon Zer-Aviv]

Hi Dan and the rest of you guys,

I'm checking in on our collab with Crossrider.

Dan I checked in and saw that you've been working on an extension called "NextThing":

NextThing

Developer: Dan Phiffer

Description

A button that says "NextThing" and takes you to something else. Dumb and simple.

care to share your experience?

Did anyone else give Crossrider a go yet?

cheers,

Mushon Zer-Aviv
Shual.com - design studio
§  ShiftSpace.org - an opensource layer above any website
¶  Mushon.com - blog
× @mushon - Tweet me

[Shmueli Ahdut]

Hey Guys,

Not sure if you have seen this already:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/31/google-like-pretty-much-eliminates-the-need-for-1/

Just FYI.

Let us know if you need anything..

[Mushon Zer-Aviv]

Nice move...

Guest it kicked you right out of stealth mode.

:)

Mushon Zer-Aviv
Shual.com - design studio
§  ShiftSpace.org - an opensource layer above any website
¶  Mushon.com - blog
× @mushon - Tweet me

[Koby Menachemi]

thx :)

The feedbacks are great! there are already few hundreds of developers signed up to our platform (+ tens of thousands end users downloaded already some of our apps) and some big publishers also contacted us. A lot of work for us but as we said, ShiftSpace is a project we like very much and will do whatever it takes to help you guys. just fyi.