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

GitHub for Windows

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 248 posts

Re: GitHub for Windows

#221

Post by nknight »

CJefferson wrote: post #214
nknight wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 identif…

That is an excellent example of "scary crypto stuff". Most people aren't going to change where the file is saved, or care. They don't know, or care what a fingerprint is. I still have no idea what the 'randomart' images are about. I don't see any benefit to all of that over having a button marked "make keys" which just gets me set up so I can use github. Of course, you could force people to care about what files are…

> They don't know, or care what a fingerprint is.

Then they cannot use the system safely and should walk away.

> I still have no idea what the 'randomart' images are about.

First result for "ssh randomart" in Google:

http://superuser.com/questions/22535/what-is-randomart-produ...

So long as you're unwilling to learn, very simple things will forever elude you.

> I don't see any benefit to all of that over having a button marked "make keys" which just gets me set up so I can use github.

It's not that the form has any strong benefit in itself, it's that if you understand what is going on, which is required for security, the text form is in no way mysterious, complicated, or intimidating. The GUI isn't fixing anything, it's just masking a serious problem with the user.

I also like being told where semi-automated processes are placing critical files on my filesystem. I'm surprised that annoys you.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#222

Post by nknight »

CJefferson wrote: post #216
nknight wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had a couple of breakages, because step 2 tells you to remove SSH keys if they are already present (without saying "Wait! Why do you have SSH keys? Maybe you should ask why they are there"), which broke various tools that expected the old keys to be there. So in all the rules, the one place that isn't just "press OK, press OK, press OK", tells you to do something probably dangerous, depending on your setup.

It tells you to back them up, that makes it an inconvenience in the worst case, not dangerous.

More fundamentally, you had SSH keys and no understanding of what they were for? Sorry, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. You are choosing to use systems you have no understanding of, and taking no time at all to learn about them. You are dangerous.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#223

Post by nknight »

talmand wrote: post #212
nknight wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In most cases you are probably correct, I'm not really commenting on those particular instructions. I'm just making an observation about the responses based on comments people give about problems they are having. I've read through the instructions and they do seem straight-forward enough. In fact, they are actually quite nice. But that still does not mean that some people will not have problems along the way. Not tha…

> The installer keeps failing for some unexplainable reason.

Not a problem following the instructions -- such a failure is clearly outside their scope.

You also conveniently ignore the reality that if they don't have permissions to install it... They're not supposed to be installing it in the first place. Report them to their corporate IT department, you'll be doing everyone a favor.

> When they get to the line ending conversions part; what if they don't understand the options and abandon the process?

Purely hypothetical. But if they give up that easily, yes, I consider it PEBKAC. People must take responsibility for their own ignorance and laziness.

> Even though the instructions are nicely laid out, not everyone is accustomed to the command line.

It. Is. Text. Read it. We read every day, we type every day. This is not difficult. Fear of the command line is irrational, which is exactly why I excluded it.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#224

Post by jamesgeck0 »

LocalPCGuy wrote: post #180
kjajula wrote: post #59

A nice addition would be Settings/Preferences where I can add or point to internal company github.

I would like the ability to add multiple folders to the path where it looks for local git repositories. For various reasons, I have repositories clustered in a few different spots on my drive. I tried to use the Windows Libraries, but as expected, it wanted a directory.

You can drag and drop local repos onto the window and it'll pick them up. Not the same as Library support, but it's something.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#225

Post by urza »

xpaulbettsx wrote: post #8
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#.

The UI was implemented using WPF4 and Blend. We also use a framework called Caliburn Micro as well as a framework I wrote called ReactiveUI which orchestrates connecting the UI to data via binding.

Nice! :) Did you used some component for the window like http://wpfwindow.codeplex.com/ or is it manually designed?

Re: GitHub for Windows

#226

Post by CJefferson »

nknight wrote: post #222
CJefferson wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a couple of breakages, because step 2 tells you to remove SSH keys if they are already present (without saying "Wait! Why do you have SSH keys? Maybe you should ask why they are there"), which broke various tools that expected the old keys to be there. So in all the rules, the one place that isn't just "press OK, press OK, press OK", tells you to do something probably dangerous, depending on your setup.

It tells you to back them up, that makes it an inconvenience in the worst case, not dangerous. More fundamentally, you had SSH keys and no understanding of what they were for? Sorry, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. You are choosing to use systems you have no understanding of, and taking no time at all to learn about them. You are dangerous.

First of all, I should have clarifed that "I had a couple of issues" means I had to fix some broken computers where that had happened.

Secondly, you just said you wanted "A single person actually who had trouble with these rules". I presented you with such a person (indirectly).

While it isn't dangerous, it was annoying, because it took some time to figure out why various tools where no longer working correctly.

To be honest, you seem to be getting surprisingly angry that there at people who might want to use this shiny thing called github, on which many projects they use might reside, without fulling understanding every detail of git, ssh, etc.

I know some mathematicans who can write amazing algorithms, who I would want involved in projects I work on. However, they use windows and don't really care about the finer workings of unix. Personally, I think it's good if such people has the easiest access possible to making a quick push request, on their own machine in their comfort zone.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#227

Post by HarshaThota »

statictype wrote: post #206
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someone mentioned MarkPad/DownmarkerWPF in the thread but Code52 has a few other projects that use WPF that are good examples. Mishra Reader (https://mishrareader.codeplex.com/) and Espera (https://github.com/flagbug/Espera) are two other apps I also like.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#228

Post by CJefferson »

nknight wrote: post #221
CJefferson wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an excellent example of "scary crypto stuff". Most people aren't going to change where the file is saved, or care. They don't know, or care what a fingerprint is. I still have no idea what the 'randomart' images are about. I don't see any benefit to all of that over having a button marked "make keys" which just gets me set up so I can use github. Of course, you could force people to care about what files are…

> They don't know, or care what a fingerprint is. Then they cannot use the system safely and should walk away. > I still have no idea what the 'randomart' images are about. First result for "ssh randomart" in Google: http://superuser.com/questions/22535/what-is-randomart-produ... So long as you're unwilling to learn, very simple things will forever elude you. > I don't see any benefit to all of that over having a but…

Just one point:

> I also like being told where semi-automated processes are placing critical files on my filesystem. I'm surprised that annoys you.

No, it really doesn't annoy me. I'm very happy for you to use git from the command line. I use git from the command line and don't intend to use this new GUI. It would be no good to me anyway, as I use linux.

However, I get the feeling that you are annoyed that other people might want to have a full automated process, and not care where the critical files are being placed.

As time goes by I feel one of the most important things is to reduce the amount of work it takes for people to get started with something, particular because I have wasted so much time on it. Did I waste the time I spent getting started with git? vim? python? Not at all.

Did I waste the time I spent getting started with emacs? ruby on rails? mercurial? FreeBSD? Arch Linux? screen? To be honest yes. Each of these things, in their own way, had an annoying and non-user friendly setup and start, and I've since stopped using them and don't believe the skills were transferable. While I enjoy learning things, sometimes I just want to get started. Also, sometimes I want to get many collegues, who are less computer literate but still experts in their own fields, started.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#229

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

statictype wrote: post #206
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I assumed that doing any sort of integration with Git would require C-level bridging.

Short of re-writing git in c#, it does require bridging. That's what unsafe code is for - calling out to dlls written in c.

> Didn't realise there was any sort of decent C# bindings for Git.

I kind of just assumed that there was. There usually is. The licences page lists "libgit2", so it's probably this one: https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2sharp#readme (edit yep, LibGit2Sharp is mentioned later on in the licences)

The file LibGit2Sharp/Core/NativeMethods.cs seems to do a lot of the bindings.

> the WPF ones that I've seen were quite clunky

I said that WPF was flexible, I didn't say simple or easy :P Also, to get good design, you usually need the help of a designer. Most coders will produce "clunky" UIs. I would. Somehow, the Windows desktop space has been very slow to deal with this.

Re: GitHub for Windows

#230

Post by nknight »

CJefferson wrote: post #226
nknight wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It tells you to back them up, that makes it an inconvenience in the worst case, not dangerous. More fundamentally, you had SSH keys and no understanding of what they were for? Sorry, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. You are choosing to use systems you have no understanding of, and taking no time at all to learn about them. You are dangerous.

First of all, I should have clarifed that "I had a couple of issues" means I had to fix some broken computers where that had happened. Secondly, you just said you wanted "A single person actually who had trouble with these rules". I presented you with such a person (indirectly). While it isn't dangerous, it was annoying, because it took some time to figure out why various tools where no longer working correctly. To b…

I'm angry at willful ignorance and attempts to justify it.

I truly, TRULY have no problem with making key generation push-button. I really don't. I have a very BIG problem with people who don't understand it pushing that button.

But you're right, I give up. All I can do is ensure that these people who demand of themselves nothing but the most disgusting of human characteristics -- willful ignorance -- do not come anywhere near my systems or projects.

Post reply on HN