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Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

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161–170 of 440 posts

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#161
If competing with git doesn't work out for you... let me tell you what the world needs... We need to bring freedom and liberation to the .docx nation. Microsoft has held that document format hostage for way too long. They keep changing that file format in order to keep competitors at bay. It is the most grotesque mote in existence in modern times. we need a document creation with versioning baked in but that abstracts those aspects and presents an intuitive way to switch from creation to publication/print. Most lawyers/docx-creators deal with at most 20 or so styles/formats. For anything else, there's publisher or adobe. So as you develop this project, if the uphill battle becomes too unbearable, consider creating a better document platform with versioning baked in.

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#162
Wow, tons of classic hacker news feedback just like the "dropbox won't work" one [0]. And we know how that ended up.

With the trend towards more and more non-devs writing code with the help of AI [1], I think you're absolutely correct with your assertion that something safer and easier than git is needed. The rest of the business case makes perfect sense too (git struggling with binaries and large files, massive code bases at Meta/Google have required alternate tools).

Love the open source strategy as well. Github showed pretty clearly that selling services over an open core can be a winner.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 [1] https://twitter.com/amasad/status/1659423752881586176?lang=e...

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#163
post #16

I have not analyzed the full potentials and benefits of Diversion but I would not agree with the statements you made about the Git. I think you should not focus on Git in your pitch. >> it was built for a very different world in 2005 (slow networks, much smaller projects, no cloud) Slow network: why is this a negative thing? If something is designed for a slow network then it should perform well in a fast network. Mu…

Even a force push doesn't destroy the reflog or runs the GC server-side. I wonder how you can accidentally loose data with Git. I've seen lot's of people not being able to find it, but really destroying it is hard.

> doesn't destroy the reflog or runs the GC server-side.

Git doesn't give you access to the server side reflog either. So it's of not much use if you don't control the server.

As for losing data with Git, the easiest way to accomplish that is with data that hasn't been committed yet, a simple `git checkout` or `git reset --hard` can wipe out all your changes and even reflog won't keep record of that.

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#164
post #16

I have not analyzed the full potentials and benefits of Diversion but I would not agree with the statements you made about the Git. I think you should not focus on Git in your pitch. >> it was built for a very different world in 2005 (slow networks, much smaller projects, no cloud) Slow network: why is this a negative thing? If something is designed for a slow network then it should perform well in a fast network. Mu…

>> a data scientist accidentally destroyed a month’s work of his team > This is mostly a configuration issue git apologism :) (FWIW I do agree with the rest of your comment, and I hope you forgive the slight joke. Product users, for any product are fallible humans. That might be fallible in accidentally deleting, or it might be fallible in forgetting to turn on the safety settings.) Very seriously, something like thi…

> Data integrity needs to be built in by design

It is built into Git by design. Git keeps commits around for 90 days even after they’re “deleted.” This is why people who understand Git were so skeptical of OP’s claim. The point that Git is confusing still stands, however.

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#165
post #133
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SCCS/RCS -> CVS -> Bitbucket/git/mercurial You skipped Subversion/SourceForge. People forget but for about 5 if not 10 years, SVN was the biggest SCM in town, next to P4, P4 having more of a hold in the game dev world.

I not only did not forget about subversion, I funded it in part. But it was of the CVS generation. I did leave out the proprietary things like Perforce and Aide de Camp, Solidworks PDM and the various in house things. Life's too short!

You also forgot Microsoft Visual SourceSafe :-p

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#167
Congrats on the launch! It's always exciting to see more competition in the version control space.

One question I have is whether you guys are better than:

https://desktop.github.com/

This seems to do the exact same thing, be free forever, and have a more mature GUI that is also easier to use than regular terminal git. In my firm, even with people who don't know how to code, they can use github desktop (since it babies you through the process of committing code.)

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Micorosoft adopted Git for Windows, they faced this problem and solved it. On Windows. On Linux Git still doesn't scale well to very large repos. Before you say "but Linux uses git!", we're talking repos that are much bugger than Linux. Also the de facto large file "solution" is LFS, which is another half baked idea that doesn't really do the job. You sound like you're offended that Git isn't perfect because y…

How common are repos bigger than Linux? Linux also has the huge advantage of an ecosystem, tools and integrations. It is overkill for small projects and there are friendlier alternatives for those - but git wins because it is what everyone knows. Something aimed at the small number of large projects will suffer the same problem.

> How common are repos bigger than Linux?

In terms of number of commits, Linux is probably bigger than most. In terms of storage size, almost any video game project will be significantly bigger.

It's no secret that git is very bad at handling large binary files.

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#169
post #116

>> most notably in games development, semiconductors and financial services are still using legacy tools like SVN and Perforce I think this should be your elevator pitch. Don't focus too much on "git complexity" as most people already know git so it just creates an argument. Scalability, in terms of numbers of users is somewhat hard to argue as well (Linux kernel has 1000s of contributors). However, it is completely…

> Don't focus too much on "git complexity" as most people already know git so it just creates an argument. I'd say this phrase is both right and wrong. It's right in the sense that it creates an argument. It's wrong in that it creates an argument with the peanut gallery of git experts. But guess what, most people using git are not experts. They're software developers who don't want to learn the intricacies of git (pr…

It is just a tough argument to make: the thing you have been using for your entire career and used almost everywhere is suddenly too complex.

Re: Launch HN: Diversion (YC S22) – Cloud-Native Git Alternative

#170
post #16

I have not analyzed the full potentials and benefits of Diversion but I would not agree with the statements you made about the Git. I think you should not focus on Git in your pitch. >> it was built for a very different world in 2005 (slow networks, much smaller projects, no cloud) Slow network: why is this a negative thing? If something is designed for a slow network then it should perform well in a fast network. Mu…

Have you ever tried running Git in the cloud? :) Cloud-native and running things on “EC2” are very different things.

Yep :) Lots of products run Git on EC2/containers, e.g. GitPod or GitHub Codespaces. Ironically, Diversion works much faster on these than git

https://github.blog/2021-08-11-githubs-engineering-team-move...

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