GitHub Desktop is now available • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#21

Post by stephendicato » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:48 PM UTC

totalrobe wrote: post #16

eli wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this as a knock on Github, but I'd argue they are a company that lives on selling corporate licenses and enterprise software to companies that don't want everything to be public.

Correct. They earn money off of private repositories... not sure how them hosting public projects adds directly to the bottom line besides the obvious marketing benefit and sticky factors.

  not sure how them hosting public projects adds directly to the bottom line

They get a ton of feedback and insight from non-paying users. The usage and feedback can drive both the product and business roadmap for their enterprise offerings.

Every developer who enjoys using it for personal or open source is also likely to recommend it to their employer as well. I know I have helped drive adoption in a few organizations.

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#22

Post by mwcampbell » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:48 PM UTC

The Windows app is still WPF-based and still uses ClickOnce for its installer. The web page claims that this is a new unified app, replacing GitHub for Mac and GitHub for Windows. But it seems to me that there are still two separate apps. I had expected something like a desktop app using web technologies via Electron, like Atom.

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#23

Post by okasaki » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

gress wrote: post #17

jvehent wrote: post #3

While I find this initiative fantastic, it's a bit frustrating that Github, a company that lives on source code being open, does not publish the code of tools like this one.

That's just a further proof point that open-source is not a panacea: it sometimes gets in the way of running a business.

There would be no github without git.

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#24

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:50 PM UTC

Can't access my Windows desktop to look now, but I thought I've had Github Desktop running on my PC for awhile now. Was this previously in beta?

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#25

Post by eli » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:51 PM UTC

totalrobe wrote: post #16

eli wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this as a knock on Github, but I'd argue they are a company that lives on selling corporate licenses and enterprise software to companies that don't want everything to be public.

Correct. They earn money off of private repositories... not sure how them hosting public projects adds directly to the bottom line besides the obvious marketing benefit and sticky factors.

For companies that use open source (i.e. pretty much everyone) it's nice to be able to mix e.g. public forks of open source repos with private repos.

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#26

Post by Fiskie » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:51 PM UTC

porker wrote: post #5

Is there a way to clone BitBucket repositories from inside Github Desktop? It looks like they've locked it down to clone from Github only.

There doesn't seem to be a way to do so, but if you open a repository cloned elsewhere everything works just fine. It even prompts for your Bitbucket password if you try to push.

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#27

Post by nwienert » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:51 PM UTC

I've always wanted something where I can see the status of all my projects at once:

- Have other people committed things to origin on any of my repos?

- Do I have uncommitted changes on any of my repos?

- Notifications for when people push

Basically this but focusing more on collaboration.

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#28

Post by JeremyMorgan » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

harel wrote: post #2

Its a shame that a Linux version is not included. A significant volume of developers work on Linux. If doing a multi platform application, why exclude it?

It's likely they felt it's not worth the time since most Linux users are using the CLI for everything else, and likely wouldn't be interested in a GUI. Personally I've never used the Github GUI and have no plans to, running the commands is fast and easy.

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#29

Post by james-skemp » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

mrsuprawsm wrote: post #8

Bulk70 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As strange as it sounds the lack of a decent git GUI is one of the reasons I don't feel comfortable using Linux as my main development environment (not the only reason of course). It's a big pitty neither Github nor Atlassian (the big "git" players, in my mind) seem inclined to release a GUI client for Linux.

I think learning the fundamentals of the git command line is pretty simple, and pays large dividends. Indeed, learning to use git was one of the main things that spurred me to learn to use the command line for many other tasks. It's a good starting point.

I started with GitHub for Windows and have quickly transitioned over to PowerShell. Bit of a learning curve, and I still have to look up a number of commands, but I've actually found it easier than using the GUI. I don't even use the Android Studio integration ...

Re: GitHub Desktop is now available

#30

Post by patrickread » Wed, Aug 12, 2015, 3:54 PM UTC

porker wrote: post #5

Is there a way to clone BitBucket repositories from inside Github Desktop? It looks like they've locked it down to clone from Github only.

Yea, I was using Github for Mac previously, and all of my non-Github projects ported over to the Github Desktop app. Like the other reply said, you just have to manually clone and the 'Add' it.