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Why I've built an alternative to Github

blog.codeplane.com

101–110 of 198 posts

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#101
post #78
post #61

Fog Creek has a product called Kiln, which is like Github, but is based on Mercurial. It's very polished and has lots of great features that focus on private repository management (but has public repos, too). It's free for up to 2 users. Unlimited repos and disk space.

And then it's $25/user/month!!!

Yes, but if you're solo freelancer or student, you can't beat it.

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#102
I don't understand this use case:

These projects are mainly side projects, or small freelance jobs I've done through the years, and I want to save them for posterity; who knows when I'll need them, right?

My solution to this problem is called tar. Just clone the Git repos to /tmp, tar up the results, and push the tarball to S3. Done. Archived for posterity for a few cents per month.

This isn't SVN anymore: It doesn't take special voodoo to host a repo. If nobody needs to push or pull from a repo, tar it up and archive it. If one person needs to push and pull from a repo, store it on that person's local hard drive (with backups, of course). If two people need to push and pull from a repo... Well, this is no longer an archive for posterity, this is an active project, and can the team really not afford to pay Github something like $5 per month per repo?

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#103
post #87
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody says that! I love Github. I used to have a paid account. I still have 100+ repositories in there. I just can't afford Github for my private repositories, which I think it's not for me anymore.

If you've got 40 private repos, I assume you're at the very least a moderately experienced professional programmer. Let's say for the sake of a figure that you charge a low price of $50 per hour. So buying a GitHub Gold account is like two hours of extra work per month for you, and you'll probably have to spend more than that on CodePlane (as a user, not developer) because it's simply not as battle-tested and extensi…

You're reading a lot into one assumption you've made. I'm a grad student. I try out lots of little things. I want to keep them, but I don't want them just on my hard drive (I like them to be available on the Internets).

GitHub forces me to open-source those small projects, and I'm usually fine with this, but lots of other people aren't. And if he can offer it for $9, then why shouldn't he? Your complaint is that his potential customers should pay more, because you think GitHub has better features, which he may or may not need. That doesn't make any sense. Having different offers and different price points makes sense, so I really don't see why you are knocking the OP for making something that fits his (and presumably others) needs.

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#104

I don't understand this use case: These projects are mainly side projects, or small freelance jobs I've done through the years, and I want to save them for posterity; who knows when I'll need them, right? My solution to this problem is called tar . Just clone the Git repos to /tmp, tar up the results, and push the tarball to S3. Done. Archived for posterity for a few cents per month. This isn't SVN anymore: It doesn'…

I imagine part of the use case is "quickly and easily getting back to a snippet within one of those old files", in which case the tarball and archive method won't really work.

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#105
post #27
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wanted to see how many clicks that would have, but you're right. Just removed the link since I just don't care. ;)

You might be able to do a quick happy medium by generating a "vanity url" such as bit.ly/sneaky-affiliate-link or something.

Or perhaps a sneaky bit of javascript to track click events on that link via ajax.

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#106

The title of the page at www.codeplane.com is "Unlimited private Git hosting", yet it appears that you are limited to 2GB of repositories for your $9/month. How is this unlimited? Are there other plans that you can sign up for? If so they seem impossible to find on the site.

I think he's referring to the absence of a limit on the actual number of repos, which is only bound by the space given. If you can git 1000 repos in there, good for you, he doesn't care.

Granted, something like "2GB private git hosting" might be more accurate.

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#107

I just use bitbucket.org + Mercurial. More than enough for personal projects, or more, given that it's unlimited. The only limit is amount of users. Switching to Hg was a bit of work, but I've actually learned to like it more than Git. Really though, it's the same kind of thing and I just use both. So I ended up at bitbucket for the same reasons OP built a new site. My way was quicker though.

I use github for the network effects, but how does hg compare to git, speed-wise? I switched to git from bzr because bzr felt awesomely slow, although git is a real pain to use, even when you're familiar with it. I understand that bzr and hg are almost identical, command-wise, but hg is about as fast as git, is that correct? What my workflow consists of is diffs/statuses/commits/pushes/pulls in projects with working…

I don't have a large codebase to compare with honestly, plus since I'm working alone I don't generally have a lot of diffing/merging. But nothing I've done has had me saying "Boy that was slow," unlike something like Perforce, which is just slow. Always. Forever.

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#108
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've got 40 private repos, I assume you're at the very least a moderately experienced professional programmer. Let's say for the sake of a figure that you charge a low price of $50 per hour. So buying a GitHub Gold account is like two hours of extra work per month for you, and you'll probably have to spend more than that on CodePlane (as a user, not developer) because it's simply not as battle-tested and extensi…

You're reading a lot into one assumption you've made. I'm a grad student. I try out lots of little things. I want to keep them, but I don't want them just on my hard drive (I like them to be available on the Internets). GitHub forces me to open-source those small projects, and I'm usually fine with this, but lots of other people aren't. And if he can offer it for $9, then why shouldn't he? Your complaint is that his…

"I really don't see why you are knocking the OP for making something that fits his (and presumably others) needs."

I'm making the case that it doesn't fit his needs, since his reluctance of paying the GitHub price is an example of this:

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#109
post #90

I don't get it, why is setting up a private git repository on your own server a hassle? Assuming you have ssh access (compacted for clarity): ssh server "git init --bare repo/project.git" git clone server:repo/project.git Am I missing something? EDIT: mkdir superfluous

That doesn't handle the multi-user authentication/authorisation.

Re: Why I've built an alternative to Github

#110
post #77

I just use bitbucket.org + Mercurial. More than enough for personal projects, or more, given that it's unlimited. The only limit is amount of users. Switching to Hg was a bit of work, but I've actually learned to like it more than Git. Really though, it's the same kind of thing and I just use both. So I ended up at bitbucket for the same reasons OP built a new site. My way was quicker though.

I agree. I would love to use github more but I want private repositories.

Yes, same. I love all the effort they've put in to the web front end, but I'm not interested in their pay plans for private repos, which to me, is just too damn expensive. $12 a month for github repos with five collaborators and a piddly disc space limit, whereas I get five collabs and unlimited disk on bitbucket.
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