Switching to DVCS

[Emiliano Heyns]

Hi,

I do more and more work offline, and I need versioning when on the
road. SVN is becoming a growing hassle for me. I need to switch to a
DVCS, and the current contenders are Mercurial (Hg), Bazaar (bzr) and
git, and someone mentioned fossil as an interesting alternative. I
have no strong preference, all of them support what I need. If noone
chimes in, it will probably be Hg, since google code supports it.

[Emiliano Heyns]

*2nd day and counting.*

For clarity, I have highlighted some of the agreements I came upone
with Chris offline below:

Also, if someone isn't going to clean up the spam in this group/
enables me to do so, I'm moving the entire lot to github or launchpad.
Leaving spam hanging around like this is far from professional, and it
annoys me to have to look at it. And I won't be sorry to leave that
sorry excuse of a bugtracker on google code behind me.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christopher Johnson <c...@ifpeople.net>
Date: Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 03:14
Subject: Re: (Temporary) detour
To: Emiliano Heyns <Emilian...@iris-advies.nl>

* Anything I throw up for discussion which doesn't get any
response within let's say 2-3 days is assumed to be OK.

Agreed. I really appreciate knowing what you are working on (and
didn't ever feel like we were trying to manage you, once you got the
OK to work on trunk.

[Emiliano Heyns]

*3rd and final day.*

The contenders are currently launchpad and googlecode switched to
mercurial. I've tried git but I'm having a hard time loving it.

Emile

[Christopher Johnson]

Hey Emiliano,

Are you talking about switching the main repository or just using one of these other tools to talk to the google code repo?

I don't have a lot of experience with any of the non-svn ones, but I know they are getting more attention. I think Agilito is already mirrored in launchpad, iirc.

-c

--
Cofounder and CEO
ifPeople - Innovation for People
t: 678-608-3408 x16
www.ifpeople.net
blog.ifpeople.net

[Emiliano Heyns]

On Sep 30, 7:34 pm, Christopher Johnson <c...@ifpeople.net> wrote:
> Hey Emiliano,
>
> Are you talking about switching the main repository or just using one of
> these other tools to talk to the google code repo?

I'm talking about switching my main repo to a DVCS flavor. Anyone will
be free to sync that with the google code repo, but the DVCS repo will
be what I'll be interacting with.

But this concerns more than just the repo. I find googlecode's bug
tracker to be sorely lacking, so I'll be tracking my issues elsewhere;
github or launchpad, or maybe something else entirely. Not partial to
any particular tool, just anything that's better than googlecode. The
reason I'm considering launchpad or github is that it's one less login
for me. If there are other sites that host Hg/Bzr/Git, I'm fine with
that too.

Another point is the mailinglist. The current list is pretty OK, but I
can't mail to it, I always have to use the web xface for some reason,
which is somewhat annoying. And there's sex-spam that isn't being
cleaned up, and I don't have the permission to do so myself, and
that's an eyesore for me.

All in all, googlecode doesn't look as sweet to me as it once did.

> I don't have a lot of experience with any of the non-svn ones, but I know
> they are getting more attention. I think Agilito is already mirrored in
> launchpad, iirc.

True, but the mirroring doesn't do us any good, since it's (currently,
at least) one-way. No clue if that can be se to bi-di.

I'm talking to jtauber about his experience with github and launchpad.
My arguments so far:

* Google code
+ I have some experience with Mercurial
+ The wiki is OK
+ It's Google (I like Google)
+ Mercurial has decent windows support (I do work on Windows
occasionally)
- The bugtracker stinks
- I can't clean up the mailing list

* Launchpad
+ I like Bzr about as good as I like Mercurial
+ Bzr has decent windows support (I do work on Windows occasionally)
+ bugtracker/mailinglist is OK
- No wiki

* Github
* Has wiki
* bugtracker/mailinglist is OK
- I'm having a hard time loving gits' way of working. Plus, the
others are written in Python (I like Python).
- Windows support not as good as Hg/Bzr

But all have pretty much the same flow as svn at their most basic
usage, you can just do more while not connected.

But really, is _anyone_ but me really planning to push to the repo?
Pulling is the same as svn for all of them.

Emile

[Christopher Johnson]

Hey Emiliano,

A few comments inline below.

On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Emiliano Heyns <emilian...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sep 30, 7:34 pm, Christopher Johnson <c...@ifpeople.net> wrote:
> Hey Emiliano,
>
> Are you talking about switching the main repository or just using one of
> these other tools to talk to the google code repo?

I'm talking about switching my main repo to a DVCS flavor. Anyone will
be free to sync that with the google code repo, but the DVCS repo will
be what I'll be interacting with.

But this concerns more than just the repo. I find googlecode's bug
tracker to be sorely lacking, so I'll be tracking my issues elsewhere;
github or launchpad, or maybe something else entirely. Not partial to
any particular tool, just anything that's better than googlecode. The
reason I'm considering launchpad or github is that it's one less login
for me. If there are other sites that host Hg/Bzr/Git, I'm fine with
that too.

Another point is the mailinglist. The current list is pretty OK, but I
can't mail to it, I always have to use the web xface for some reason,
which is somewhat annoying. And there's sex-spam that isn't being
cleaned up, and I don't have the permission to do so myself, and
that's an eyesore for me.

Every google group I am on is getting the same for the last couple months. I thought I had perms, but apparently don't. I emailed the owner to ask to share with you and I for help in maintaining the current list anyway. 

have you tried bitbucket? I've heard lots of good things from the python folks about liking it and hg.
 
At present I think you're the main one engaged in pushing to the repo. We occassionally need to patch or change something, but not actively developing.

-c

But all have pretty much the same flow as svn at their most basic
usage, you can just do more while not connected.

But really, is _anyone_ but me really planning to push to the repo?
Pulling is the same as svn for all of them.

Emile

[Emiliano Heyns]

On Oct 8, 4:26 pm, Christopher Johnson <c...@ifpeople.net> wrote:
> > > I don't have a lot of experience with any of the non-svn ones, but I know
> > > they are getting more attention. I think Agilito is already mirrored in
> > > launchpad, iirc.

Turns out we're mirrored at github, which jtauber set up. I couldn't
find a launchpad mirror. After a bit of use I've found launchpad to be
cumbersome. Current candidates include github, and project Kenai.

> have you tried bitbucket? I've heard lots of good things from the python
> folks about liking it and hg.

I'll give it a spin.

> At present I think you're the main one engaged in pushing to the repo. We
> occassionally need to patch or change something, but not actively
> developing.

Is that likely to remain so?

Emile

[Rudy Lattae]

Weighing in late in the game:

I have not had any experience with Project Kenai [http://kenai.com] or
Bitbucket [] (or Hg for that matter) so I cannot comment on those
VCSs. However, I actively use both Launchpad [https://launchpad.net]
and GitHub [http://github.com] so here's my contribution to the
discussion.

I'll support the move to any of launchpad (lp) or github. I've used
them both through bzr and git and they are robust. Also since they are
web fronts for dvcs'es the workflow is more intuitive -- i.e. make
local commits as you go along and push "bundles" of changes up to the
server. I like launchpad's project management tools (code, bugs,
blueprints, releases) more than github's. Also lp has great group (and
sub group) management and sharing across projects. However, I have to
agree with Emile about lp's cumbersome UI. They have not yet settled
on a particular look and feel yet and that makes it more difficult to
"get used to it". I like github's clean layout.

They both have excellent code review/merge tracking capabilities and
so far I see less spam on the projects on lp and github (even
gitorious) than on google code.

Since I'm not an actual contributor (code-wise) to the project, I'm
not really sure how much of an effort the migration itself would need.
i.e. moving the discussion threads, wiki pages etc. Also your group
members would have to setup new accounts and contributors would have
to create secure keys to sign code commits actually that's a major
plus in terms of trusting external code contributions.

If it will not be much of a pain, I say go for it, the alternatives
are just as good as (actually in my opinion, better than) google code
+ groups.

All the best,

[Emiliano Heyns]

On Oct 10, 7:32 am, Rudy Lattae <rudylat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll support the move to any of launchpad (lp) or github. I've used
> them both through bzr and git and they are robust. Also since they are
> web fronts for dvcs'es the workflow is more intuitive -- i.e. make
> local commits as you go along and push "bundles" of changes up to the
> server. I like launchpad's project management tools (code, bugs,
> blueprints, releases) more than github's. Also lp has great group (and
> sub group) management and sharing across projects. However, I have to
> agree with Emile about lp's cumbersome UI. They have not yet settled
> on a particular look and feel yet and that makes it more difficult to
> "get used to it". I like github's clean layout.
>
> They both have excellent code review/merge tracking capabilities and
> so far I see less spam on the projects on lp and github (even
> gitorious) than on google code.

I've spent last week trying to like git, but I've given up. There's a
few concepts I like about git, and I realize it's ahead of the others
in functionality and mindshare, but it has a few warts that I
currently just can't tolerate, so git is out. I've tried Mercurial for
a bit, and it's working out for me; from what I've read, bzr is pretty
similar in concept. Which leaves us with launchpad for bzr, or
googlecode, kenai or bitbucket for hg. I know sourceforge offers hg,
but the new sf ui is ridiculously cluttered and ugly, so that's out.

Googlecode has the pro that it doesn't require much change, but I
would need to have (co-) control of the mailinglists; I've mailed the
owner (no idea who he or she is), if that works out I'll probably keep
stuff here, and set up a google group where issue tracker changes get
mailed to. If I can't get co-ownership, and given the fact that I'm
currently the only active project member, googlecode is out. Also, I
need to find a solution for the problem that stuff I mail to
googlegroups gets bounced, I need to use the web-ui for everything. If
I can't fix that, googlecode is out.

I have no experience with bitbucket or kenai. Kenai offers jira, which
I've heard very good things about.

> Since I'm not an actual contributor (code-wise) to the project, I'm
> not really sure how much of an effort the migration itself would need.
> i.e. moving the discussion threads, wiki pages etc.

The discussion threads would not be migrated. Wiki pages are easy,
since they live in subversion. Moving the repo over is easy (done it
before at work).

> Also your group
> members would have to setup new accounts

That's true, and it's a pity. There's not too many currently, however,
so I don't consider that to be a blocking issue.

> and contributors would have
> to create secure keys to sign code commits actually that's a major
> plus in terms of trusting external code contributions.

Realistically, I'm the only active comitter right now. I'd love for
that to change, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Emile

[Emiliano Heyns]

It took some doing, but I've moved all of the stuff over to github. In
the end, git is not as bad as I thought it was, and has some nice
features.

I had hoped to host the entire lot in one place, but github doesn't
have mailinglists, and the wiki *bites*, so:

* code is at http://github.com/friflaj/ajellito
* documentation uses github pages at http://friflaj.github.com/ajellito
* mailing lists have moved to http://groups.google.com/group/ajellito-dev

I'm sorry about the name changes, but I have so far not been able to
reach the owner of the agilito-dev group, and I can't stand the site
of the sexual spam. With the new group, currently owned by me, I can
clean this up when it happens.

I have no specific interest in being the sole owner of this, so if
anyone wants co-ownership of the group, just give me a holler. Github
makes it easy to clone and share patches, so I would propose we use
that mechanism instead of repo sharing.

Because of the move to github, the installer script has changed
slightly, as have the getting started instructions at
http://friflaj.github.com/ajellito/GettingStarted.html, but the
changes are slight.

Thanks for supporting this,
Emile