Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 27 posts

Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#1

Post by johnsto19 »

I have heard that git on Windows has been shaky in the past, but I am wondering if things are better today?

I will need to setup git on a Windows server, and then I am wondering what the best way for developers to use it on their Windows boxes would be?

Note: while you may think command line is the best way to use git, the people around me would prefer a Visual Studio plugin or something along those lines.

Also: how common is it to install git on a Windows server? Is it probably just best to stick with something like SVN?

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#2

Post by barrydahlberg »

I use msysgit daily on Windows 7 against a github account. For the most part things work fine but there are a few things that annoy me:

- Disagreements about case insensitive paths sometimes confuse git. Renaming a folder simply to change its case is the most common one that catches me.

- I run everything through the bash shell which works fine but is a pain to connect to Windows batch files. This makes automation harder than required.

- Line endings... I just turn off any automatic conversion and use a decent editor that doesn't mind.

I initially used the GUI that comes with it and that works fine but I find the command line faster to work with. The advantages of git make the above problems worth it to work around for me.

I don't run my own server so can't comment on that. From what I have read linux setup would be much easier to do.

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#3

Post by barrydahlberg »

barrydahlberg wrote: post #2

I use msysgit daily on Windows 7 against a github account. For the most part things work fine but there are a few things that annoy me: - Disagreements about case insensitive paths sometimes confuse git. Renaming a folder simply to change its case is the most common one that catches me. - I run everything through the bash shell which works fine but is a pain to connect to Windows batch files. This makes automation ha…

I also don't use any kind of Visual Studio plugin for it sorry, I usually to find they don't handle things outside the solution structure very well.

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#4

Post by jcsalterego »

barrydahlberg wrote: post #2

I use msysgit daily on Windows 7 against a github account. For the most part things work fine but there are a few things that annoy me: - Disagreements about case insensitive paths sometimes confuse git. Renaming a folder simply to change its case is the most common one that catches me. - I run everything through the bash shell which works fine but is a pain to connect to Windows batch files. This makes automation ha…

> - I run everything through the bash shell which works fine but is a pain to connect to Windows batch files. This makes automation harder than required.

What are you using bash or batch files for? Have you tried PowerShell as a replacement for batch files?

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#5

Post by kjhgfkjmhng »

barrydahlberg wrote: post #3
barrydahlberg wrote: post #2

I use msysgit daily on Windows 7 against a github account. For the most part things work fine but there are a few things that annoy me: - Disagreements about case insensitive paths sometimes confuse git. Renaming a folder simply to change its case is the most common one that catches me. - I run everything through the bash shell which works fine but is a pain to connect to Windows batch files. This makes automation ha…

I also don't use any kind of Visual Studio plugin for it sorry, I usually to find they don't handle things outside the solution structure very well.

Tortoise git is very usable, it's as good as tortoiseSVN for day-day use.

I don't bother with VS integration, I prefer to checkin the folder to make sure I get all the extra files that aren't shown in VS

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#6

Post by dmethvin »

Do the devs already know git, or will it be a new experience for them? No matter what tool(s) you use, learning to use git effectively will be the hardest part.

I use TortoiseGit integrated into Windows Explorer for most stuff, and drop down to the command line in the odd situation where it's needed. I can't give much feedback about the server side, I'm using GitHub.

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#7

Post by johnsto19 »

dmethvin wrote: post #6

Do the devs already know git, or will it be a new experience for them? No matter what tool(s) you use, learning to use git effectively will be the hardest part. I use TortoiseGit integrated into Windows Explorer for most stuff, and drop down to the command line in the odd situation where it's needed. I can't give much feedback about the server side, I'm using GitHub.

I am pleased to see TortoiseGit, does it have any big issues? I remember hearing about it a while ago being very "beta" software.

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#9

Post by silentbicycle »

As someone accustomed to using git on Unix, I haven't had problems using msysgit on a (cygwin'd, etc.) system. I'm not sure how developers expecting Visual Studio and unfamiliar with the command line would do, but the many small, quirky "Windows is clearly an afterthought" issues present ~2 years ago seem to be gone.

Re: Ask HN: How is Git on Windows today?

#10

Post by plorkyeran »

I've used msysgit on a daily basis for about six months now and have had very few problems. The biggest one is that Visual Studio locks files while updating intellisense, so anything that updates a large number of files at once while the solution is open has a decent chance of failing on at least one file. This is only really a problem when doing complicated rebases though, and even then at worst you just have to abort it and start over.

I've never used a gui for git, so I can't comment on how well they work.

Post reply on HN