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GitHub for Windows

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Re: GitHub for Windows

#201

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

statictype wrote: post #6

I'd be interested in learning how they implemented the UI - it looks like it's native to Windows 8 but runs just as well on Windows 7. Would be interested to hear what toolkit they used. So far, the UX has been impressive for a tool that has historically not run very well on Windows. Edit : They've mentioned the toolkits used at the bottom of the page. Apparently this is written in C#.

If you run the app, click on the "tools and options" cog then "licences". This page lists a lot of libraries.

> Apparently this is written in C#.

You sound surprised. To me it looks like a quite slick WPF app, which aims for a metro-ish look. But I've seen nothing in the UI that is particularly challenging for WPF. WPF is very, very flexible.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#202

Post by eli »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #200
eli wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many people there Github = git, so saying github isn't much harder to set up than Git isn't saying much. Using git on Windows has historically not been super fun. The CLI installer mostly works, but it's pretty clunky. Cygwin works fine too, but it's also not especially elegant. At the very least, known of these solutions conform to the expectations of people of the platform. The GUI clients on Windows last I loo…

> The GUI clients on Windows last I looked (a year ago) were pretty terrible, especially compared to TortoiseSVN, which isn't bad There is TortoiseGit, which is basically TortoiseSVN over git. It looks much the same. You can regard it as a good place to start with git, or as something that stops you learning what makes git special.

Maybe it's gotten better, but last I tried it, TortoiseGit simply did not work well. It was buggy and awkward. It crashed. And I agree with what I think you're saying in that it obscures a lot of what makes Git different. (That said, I still think it would be very useful if it worked well.)

Re: GitHub for Windows

#203

Post by toyg »

pthread wrote: post #118

Funny how most git users out there (at least according to the git user's survery 2011 [1]) use Linux, yet github seems to go out of its way not to build a tool for its majority of users. I would also go as far as to extrapolate and state that most github users are Linux users (which is true for every programmer I know on github). Would it have been that hard to just use Qt and build a cross platform tool? Or is that…

The tool for Linux users already exists: it's git itself. Demand for a desktop GUI in the Linux world is almost zero for basically everything, but especially so for a tool like git with no external dependency.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#204

Post by nailer »

nknight wrote: post #155
Roritharr wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your problem with someone being scared of crypto stuff? I find this shows the necessary respect when dealing with security related tasks, since they are HARD. I'm not talking about developing crypto related software, but just setting up a "safe" environment where you can store your SSH Keys in a way that doesn't defeat the purpose of using them in the first place is non-trivial, even for people with degrees.…

Here's the fundamental problem. If you can't understand very basic security tools and concepts, you cannot securely operate a computer, much less hope to ever write secure code. SSH is one of the easiest security tools to use safely that has ever existed. I would say it is second in usability only to HTTPS in browsers, while having a much better actual security record, and is infinitely more powerful, while keeping b…

> Here's the fundamental problem. If you can't understand very basic security tools and concepts, you cannot securely operate a computer, much less hope to ever write secure code.

He didn't say he was incapable of understanding it.

> SSH is one of the easiest security tools to use safely that has ever existed. I would say it is second in usability only to HTTPS in browsers

Perhaps that's true, but I suggest testing it would show a massive discrepancy between ease of HTTPS use and SSH use.

In short: I think this is a UX issue, not a PEBCAK one.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#205

Post by toyg »

Awesome tool, but I think it shows once more the terrible state of SSH in the Windows world. It's scandalous how MS refuses to make it a first-class citizen on the platform -- it should come pre-installed and pre-configured, or at least with a config wizard, and have simple APIs for third-party apps.

Considering how MS are not really pushing a competitor, I don't understand why they refuse to add such a simple thing. RDP is a completely different tool, and anyway it's not really something you'd expose on the internet, so I don't understand why they can't just integrate OpenSSH -- it's not even GPL!

Re: GitHub for Windows

#206

Post by statictype »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #201
statictype wrote: post #6

I'd be interested in learning how they implemented the UI - it looks like it's native to Windows 8 but runs just as well on Windows 7. Would be interested to hear what toolkit they used. So far, the UX has been impressive for a tool that has historically not run very well on Windows. Edit : They've mentioned the toolkits used at the bottom of the page. Apparently this is written in C#.

If you run the app, click on the "tools and options" cog then "licences". This page lists a lot of libraries. > Apparently this is written in C#. You sound surprised. To me it looks like a quite slick WPF app, which aims for a metro-ish look. But I've seen nothing in the UI that is particularly challenging for WPF. WPF is very, very flexible.

I am surprised (and I say this as a person who has written a lot of C# and likes the language).

I assumed that doing any sort of integration with Git would require C-level bridging. Didn't realize there was any sort of decent C# bindings for Git.

Also, I have not seen very many Windows apps with slick UIs like this that were written in C#. Even the WPF ones that I've seen were quite clunky.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#207

Post by nknight »

nailer wrote: post #204
nknight wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the fundamental problem. If you can't understand very basic security tools and concepts, you cannot securely operate a computer, much less hope to ever write secure code. SSH is one of the easiest security tools to use safely that has ever existed. I would say it is second in usability only to HTTPS in browsers, while having a much better actual security record, and is infinitely more powerful, while keeping b…

> Here's the fundamental problem. If you can't understand very basic security tools and concepts, you cannot securely operate a computer, much less hope to ever write secure code. He didn't say he was incapable of understanding it. > SSH is one of the easiest security tools to use safely that has ever existed. I would say it is second in usability only to HTTPS in browsers Perhaps that's true, but I suggest testing i…

There is no UX issue, it's entirely an irrational fear of having to read. Putting it in a GUI accomplishes nothing but clutter the screen with irrelevant crap.

    nknight@unassigned-hostname:~$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "foo@example.com"
    Generating public/private rsa key pair.
    Enter file in which to save the key (/home/nknight/.ssh/id_rsa): 
    Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
    Enter same passphrase again: 
    Your identification has been saved in /home/nknight/.ssh/id_rsa.
    Your public key has been saved in /home/nknight/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
    The key fingerprint is:
    d3:c0:19:ae:5b:ff:46:fd:a0:b5:9c:a2:93:a4:ca:c2 foo@example.com
    The key's randomart image is:
    +--[ RSA 2048]----+
    |        .        |
    |       o o       |
    |        =        |
    |       . o       |
    |      . S .  .   |
    |       o o. . +  |
    |   .  .  o.o + = |
    |    E.  . o.+ + .|
    |     .o.  .+..   |
    +-----------------+
    nknight@unassigned-hostname:~$
Read. READ. Comprehend. Don't throw your hands up and say "But it's sooooo confusing!". It's not. It's very simple, and it is not possible to simplify further, no matter how you try to dress it up in eyecandy, you still must read and comprehend the exact same concepts. If you do not, you cannot be secure. Ever. The basic concepts of public key crypto are mandatory knowledge for everybody.

Get over your irrational fear and you will have no more trouble than you would reading a technical book.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#208

Post by nknight »

talmand wrote: post #188
nknight wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not insulting to point out that the instructions are very simple, easy to follow, and easy to understand. Everyone here is smart enough to understand these things, and it's utterly bewildering that they angrily refuse to spend 5 minutes learning about something new in order to use something new.

Ah, but to the people who may have trouble with the instructions (for whatever reason) or using the product beyond the instructions it is quite insulting. It is a direct insult to their intelligence and/or their ability for no good reason. That attitude does nothing to help our community, especially the people who are new to all this. Let's imagine a company creates some form of hardware widget that requires some for…

http://help.github.com/win-set-up-git/

Please, bring me someone who actually had trouble with those instructions, and not because they freaked out at the first sign of a command line. They must have actually read them, including the expandable bits, made a serious effort to follow them, and failed.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#209

Post by nknight »

ansgri wrote: post #199
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of checking id_rsa into your Git repo or emailing it, (which would be equivalent to doing so with passwords.txt), SSH (and thus Git) protect you from leaving id_rsa with open permissions. Though it may not be obvious that id_rsa is something to protect. (though again, I don't go emailing random files I don't understand either). That having been said, I'm certainly not a security expert. Are there other common…

Do I understand right that id_rsa is an equivalent of password.txt in that you have big broblems if someone gets it? In this case I really worry about its being stored in the open in some /users/AppData and not on some TrueCrypt drive that is not mounted by default.

This is why you protect it with a passphrase, which SSH asks you to do by default. Choose a good passphrase, it's encrypted on disk, and decrypted only as needed.

Seriously guys, you're not even trying. Here are the instructions everyone is freaking out about, they contain an explanation of this very issue.

http://help.github.com/win-set-up-git/

Re: GitHub for Windows

#210

Post by joelhaasnoot »

jasonkester wrote: post #60

Great news. I got flamed a month ago [1] for noting how difficult it is to get up and running on GitHub in the Windows world, where things like generating SSH keys aren't exactly part of the daily routine. Glad to hear that they were listening. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3871699

Except that the GUI in Git for Windows doesn't support using SSH keys.
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