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GitHub for Mac

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Re: GitHub for Mac

#111

Post by catch23 »

eli wrote: post #71

That's cool and all, but a Windows client would make a lot more business sense. There are already a couple of nice git clients for Mac. There aren't for Windows. And I assume github is targeting SMB with its paid offerings. Unless you're a design shop or a hip startup, odds are you're not running OS X. Based on my unscientific data, most companies have the devs working on Windows (or occasionally Linux).

They're eating their own dog food. Maybe they're making it because they want to use it themselves first. I'm sure they're heavy users of Git, and it would probably be easier to do iteration on something you use instead of iterating on something you'll never use (on windows).

Re: GitHub for Mac

#112

Post by catch23 »

eli wrote: post #76
getsat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Windows client doesn't make sense when most (all?) Github employees are on Macs. Mac is higher priority than Windows.

Sure, but my point is that most of Github's potential customers are not on Macs.

My point is that their UI could change, and it's easier to test out UX on something that you'll use everyday, than on something that you'll never use. They made Github because they wanted to use it themselves, not because they saw it as a money making scheme.

Re: GitHub for Mac

#113

Post by catch23 »

jbellis wrote: post #75
getsat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Windows client doesn't make sense when most (all?) Github employees are on Macs. Mac is higher priority than Windows.

I get that dogfooding is important, but github employees aren't the target market.

Github employees are the target market, they use Git don't they? What use is developing a windows app that none of the developers will use initially?

Re: GitHub for Mac

#115

Post by catch23 »

rjh29 wrote: post #69

I'm sorry, but in the world of awesomely-licensed Qt and other cross-platform toolkits, why would you go out of your way to build a native app on Mac libraries and only release it for a single platform? I can understand that OS X probably has the biggest share of GitHub visitors, but git is fully open source, GitHub seem to very much like open source, and in the spirit of that I'd expect a native app that works on as…

Reminds me of when Intuit was building out Quicken -- most of their versions were built using cross platform tools, but inside the code it became a big mess and most recently they decided to scrap the whole thing and re-write the mac client in native objective-c instead of c++

Sure you can build cross-platform stuff using Java or QT, but has anyone actually liked the stuff that came out from that?

Re: GitHub for Mac

#116

Post by dchest »

bradleyland wrote: post #110
dchest wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in your reply addresses my points, so I'm not sure what to answer. Yes, I tried GitX, and I'm not looking for (or using) Git GUI tools. This doesn't make GitHub for Mac less visually cluttered. I'm mostly discussing GUI trends (as a Mac developer who cares about this stuff), using GitHub as an example (which, as you say, gets job done great, but I say that it can be improved).

I didn't mean my reply to be a point by point rebuttal. Your description seemed to match GitX pretty well, so I figured I'd mention it. The rest of my reply was pointing out how I perceived this to be different than GitX, which was tangential to the point, but I didn't really think a separate reply was required. Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks. Yes, me not mentioning that, apart from my GUI nitpicking, the GitHub app seem to be great, may have caused the confusion.

Re: GitHub for Mac

#117

Post by nupark2 »

eli wrote: post #76
getsat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Windows client doesn't make sense when most (all?) Github employees are on Macs. Mac is higher priority than Windows.

Sure, but my point is that most of Github's potential customers are not on Macs.

For productivity apps (and especially developer tools), it's not worth chasing customers on a platform you don't love -- you'll do a bad job and you'll be unhappy doing it.

Re: GitHub for Mac

#118

Post by neovive »

Looks great! One more reason for developers to move over to Git and a great way to get more people on GitHub.

On another note, I wonder if this is another example of how native applications are gaining momentum on the desktop as a carry-over from the mobile apps industry. Perhaps, more companies will begin asking the question "if native apps beat web apps on mobile devices, why not on the desktop as well?"

Re: GitHub for Mac

#119

Post by seabee »

hubb wrote: post #100
eli wrote: post #71

That's cool and all, but a Windows client would make a lot more business sense. There are already a couple of nice git clients for Mac. There aren't for Windows. And I assume github is targeting SMB with its paid offerings. Unless you're a design shop or a hip startup, odds are you're not running OS X. Based on my unscientific data, most companies have the devs working on Windows (or occasionally Linux).

you think the average git user is on windows? http://www.survs.com/WO/WebObjects/Survs.woa/wa/shareResults...

Narrowing yourself to 'git users' is a silly thing for two reasons:

1) there are many Windows devs out there who require a VCS 1a) ...who will only use a GUI-based VCS (seriously)

2) there are many users of other VCSes (e.g. Subversion)

These are big markets waiting to be tapped. The answer is not "don't try if nobody else is tapping them". Hacker News is the last place I expect to hear that!

Re: GitHub for Mac

#120

Post by there »

hubb wrote: post #100
eli wrote: post #71

That's cool and all, but a Windows client would make a lot more business sense. There are already a couple of nice git clients for Mac. There aren't for Windows. And I assume github is targeting SMB with its paid offerings. Unless you're a design shop or a hip startup, odds are you're not running OS X. Based on my unscientific data, most companies have the devs working on Windows (or occasionally Linux).

you think the average git user is on windows? http://www.survs.com/WO/WebObjects/Survs.woa/wa/shareResults...

github should do some os fingerprinting of tcp connections to its servers and they'd be able to tell fairly accurately what most of their customers use.
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