GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#181

Post by wayvey » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 2:36 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #155

schacon wrote: post #12

As one of the GitHub cofounders and the brainchild of this particular feature, I want to let everyone know that this is maybe the funniest thing I've ever done. We released this feature and published the announcing blog post, on April Fool's Day, 2010. I remember demoing it to the other GitHub guys and saying how funny it would be if we made this an April Fool's day post as though it was a big stupid joke but then it…

This is the right way to do April Fool's. Similarly, I added support to del.icio.us for color: urls for april fool's. It worked, correctly, everywhere.

what did it do?

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#182

Post by eppp » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 2:43 AM UTC

spydum wrote: post #169

haileys wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not an HTTP server with a directory index? FTP is a pretty clunky protocol: it's round-trip heavy, not friendly to NAT on the client-side when you don't use PASV, not friendly to firewalls on the server-side when you do. I'm not sure what benefits there are to it these days.

Ftp is dead, just enterprise and mid level companies won't let go. It boggles the mind why it has persisted so long.

There is tons of old crappy software that cannot understand anything else, so it persists. Like fax machines.

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#183

Post by Geezus-42 » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 3:06 AM UTC

spydum wrote: post #169

haileys wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not an HTTP server with a directory index? FTP is a pretty clunky protocol: it's round-trip heavy, not friendly to NAT on the client-side when you don't use PASV, not friendly to firewalls on the server-side when you do. I'm not sure what benefits there are to it these days.

Ftp is dead, just enterprise and mid level companies won't let go. It boggles the mind why it has persisted so long.

Though I typically use rsync these days, FTP can be useful for copying files to and from a Linux server when the client is a Windows machine.

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#184

Post by sitkack » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 3:07 AM UTC

spydum wrote: post #169

haileys wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not an HTTP server with a directory index? FTP is a pretty clunky protocol: it's round-trip heavy, not friendly to NAT on the client-side when you don't use PASV, not friendly to firewalls on the server-side when you do. I'm not sure what benefits there are to it these days.

Ftp is dead, just enterprise and mid level companies won't let go. It boggles the mind why it has persisted so long.

But how can we pop a box without have wuftpd installed?

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#185

Post by anotherevan » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 3:10 AM UTC

schacon wrote: post #12

As one of the GitHub cofounders and the brainchild of this particular feature, I want to let everyone know that this is maybe the funniest thing I've ever done. We released this feature and published the announcing blog post, on April Fool's Day, 2010. I remember demoing it to the other GitHub guys and saying how funny it would be if we made this an April Fool's day post as though it was a big stupid joke but then it…

I fondly remember that blog post, having a play, and my sheer delight in finding it worked. I've always thought of it as the April Fools' joke that kept on giving.

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#186

Post by Kim_Bruning » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 3:25 AM UTC

Geezus-42 wrote: post #183

spydum wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ftp is dead, just enterprise and mid level companies won't let go. It boggles the mind why it has persisted so long.

Though I typically use rsync these days, FTP can be useful for copying files to and from a Linux server when the client is a Windows machine.

Recent windows versions natively support ssh, scp, sftp on the command line.

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#187

Post by klyrs » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 3:41 AM UTC

adamdusty wrote: post #85

klyrs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wanted to announce this on April Fool's Day, but just couldn't make the timing work. Thank you for not doing that. Releasing a wacky feature on April 1 is funny. Discontinuing a service that people might rely on is distinctly un-funny.

I disagree. It would probably prompt a few support calls and emails, but otherwise I think it would be great.

I don't read the news on April 1 because it got old decades ago. Sunsetting a service, rather than killing it outright, is a kindness. Making the announcement on April 1 means people will miss it or ignore it. Uncool.

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#188

Post by jen20 » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 3:59 AM UTC

ivanmontillam wrote: post #177

neallindsay wrote: post #108

I remember when they added Subversion support; I thought it was hilarious. And it worked! This quote from the linked blog post made me raise my eyebrows though: > In 2010…it was not yet clear that distributed version control would eventually take over, and even less clear that Git would be the dominant system. I think it was actually extremely clear that Git would win. It had a guaranteed audience by virtue of hostin…

> At that point in time, it was not yet clear that distributed version control would eventually take over, and even less clear that Git would be the dominant system. Literally reading it on GitHub's blog, where the whole endeavor has the name of a source control system in it. Jokes aside, did they knew Git was going to win or did they just take on a massive risk that would otherwise gone wrong?

My guess is that GitHub is what ensured Git won.

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#189

Post by LilBytes » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 4:19 AM UTC

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #186

Geezus-42 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I typically use rsync these days, FTP can be useful for copying files to and from a Linux server when the client is a Windows machine.

Recent windows versions natively support ssh, scp, sftp on the command line.

The types of companies that use Windows will atypically take a long time to get on a modern version for their stack. Desktop fleet withstanding.

Re: GitHub Sunsetting Subversion Support

#190

Post by thayne » Sat, Jan 21, 2023, 4:20 AM UTC

Jenk wrote: post #153

maegul wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall needing/wanting to clone only a specific folder from a repo and the best solution being to use SVN. I'm pretty sure I used that trick a few times and even shared it a couple of times. Don't know if it's possible with git now, but that was how I discovered this feature and it seemed eminently useful to me at the time!

That's called a "sparse checkout" in git-land. https://www.git-scm.com/docs/git-sparse-checkout

A sparse checkout isn't quite the same thing. It still has to clone the whole repository, it just only puts part of it in the working tree. With svn, you don't have to pull down anything for other directories. More recently, you can combine a sparse checkout with partial clone to get more similar functionality, but it isn't exactly simple.