First round of UGFWIINI results

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

I managed to collect 10 candidates already, and since I did all the hard
work of collating them, I took the liberty of ordering them into a very
subjective order of ugfwiininess (pronounced "You-gah-wee-knee-ness").

Please assist me while reading this mail by hitting your desk alternating
between your two index fingers, increasing the frequency from 2 to 4 hertz
throughout the mail.

Ready? Okay.

Number 10:

Sergio Callegari describes how to manage opendocument (openoffice.org) files
in git in

	http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2008/9/15/3305014

While this might strike some of you as pretty lame, in my opinion it is still
something Git was not intended for: Never mind the title "stupid content
tracker", Git was clearly intended to track source code stored as small ASCII
files; otherwise, 'git diff' would not be such an integral part of Git.

Number 9:

Tim Ansell talked about managing large media with Git at the GitTogether:

	http://www.thousandparsec.net/~tim/media+git.pdf

This falls into the same category as number 10, but in addition it strains
the assumption of Git that you can easily fit the contents of a file into
memory, as well as the assumption that it is pretty easy (and meaningful)
to make a diff from two versions of a file.

Number 8:

Avery Pennarun explains his endeavor of tracking windows with git...
"If I get a virus, I can 'git revert' it."
http://alumnit.ca/~apenwarr/log/?m=200901#21
 
Sverre remarks: "It even beats the way we use Git to track the MSys
installation in msysgit.git..."

This is also related to Martin Krafft's idea to sort of replace the Debian
packaging management by using Git, but...

Number 7:

... actually does something like that: James Tucker implemented a port manager
based on Git:

	http://github.com/raggi/source_ports

Number 6:

Dieter Plaetinck synchronizes Firefox profiles using Git:

	http://dieter.plaetinck.be/rethinking_the_backup_paradigm_a_higher-level_approach

Now, this even strains the definition of "content"...

Number 5:

David Abrahams archiving a large number of files (and detecting duplicates)
uses Git partly for something it _can_ do, but certainly was not intended to
do: identify duplicates.

	http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2009/1/27/4827304

While the content-addressable filesystem has to deal with duplicates in the
_time_ dimension very well (not many files are supposed to change from one
revision to the next one, so most of the files _are_ duplicated), dealing
with it in the _space_ dimension is not the purpose of Git, as can be seen
by the lack of tool support for it (also keep in mind the absence of git-cp).

Number 4:

Josef Wolf asks in [off-list ref] (with a fully
valid Mail-Followup-To header) "How to move subdirectories from one svn
repos to another."

"I would like to move a complete subdirectory with all its history from
one svn repository to another."

Now, the ugfwiininess of this entry is definitely increased dramatically
by Josef being inclined to go to Git _and back to Subversion_ again :-)

(Imagine a cheeky smirk on the face of your host.)

Number 3:

Jan Krueger's Git cookbook uses a Git repository as a backend of a content
management system:

	http://repo.zoidberg.org/w/git-articledb.git
	http://gitrecipes.de/

This is related to the way my own blog works, but he was first.  Credit
where credit is due.

Number 2:

At the GitTogether, Sam Vilain presented his idea to use Git as a DB backend:

	http://utsl.gen.nz/talks/git-db

Just think about it: committing by "INSERT INTO"!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please brace yourself for...

Number 1:

Scott Chacon's iGitHub: Running a git-daemon on an iPhone

	http://github.com/schacon/igithub/

This is so awesome as to defeat any attempt to describe it.


I hope you enjoyed the show, and see you again next time, on

	Using Git For What It Is Not Intended

(Now play your favorite jingle.)

Heya,

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 17:47, Johannes Schindelin
[off-list ref] wrote:

I managed to collect 10 candidates already, and since I did all the hard
work of collating them, I took the liberty of ordering them into a very
subjective order of ugfwiininess (pronounced "You-gah-wee-knee-ness").

How about using git to do a temporary 'svn stash'?
If you have changes in your svn working copy that you cannot commit
just yet, but you want to check out an earlier revision for whatever
reason, the current only solution in svn to that is to have a second
working copy. But no longer!
$ cd path/to/svn/repo
$ git init && git add . && git commit -m "save svn state"
$ svn revert -R *
$ svn update -r 42
$ # do whatever you need to do here
$ git reset --hard && rm .git

Does that qualify? ;)


-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier

also sprach Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] [2009.02.17.1747 +0100]:

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

A shame that I didn't see the contest start. I would have had
a number of cases to add using Git

  - to track your ~ (cf. http://vcs-home.madduck.net)
  - to track /etc (cf. http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/etckeeper/)
  - as the backend for a service like snapshot.debian.net
  - as a mail store and complete replacement of IMAP

anyway, enter me for round 2!!

Avery Pennarun explains his endeavor of tracking windows with
git... "If I get a virus, I can 'git revert' it."
http://alumnit.ca/~apenwarr/log/?m=200901#21
 
Sverre remarks: "It even beats the way we use Git to track the
MSys installation in msysgit.git..."

This is also related to Martin Krafft's idea to sort of replace
the Debian packaging management by using Git, but...

I had this idea? Well, maybe something related: vcs-pkg.org, which
is about using distributed VCS for distro package maintenance. More
Debian-specific is my goal to replace source packages with services
that build straight from trees identified by Git tags, which I've
written a bit about here:

  http://madduck.net/blog/2005.08.11:rcs-uploads/

This is up high on my list of todos, so expect more on this topic
soon.

Anyway, thanks Johannes for the fun! :)

-- 
martin | http://madduck.net/ | http://two.sentenc.es/
 
"wenn elephanten tanzen leidet das gras."
                                                 -- die vogelpredigt
 
spamtraps: madduck.bogus@madduck.net

To those wondering what happened to Dscho lately:

In Germany, there is this special time of the year called
Fasching/Karneval/Fasenacht/... (carneval) where even the most serious
patch bashers may turn into funny pals ;)

To Dscho:

Great work, I hope you'll go on past Ash Wednesday!

I'll work on my entry for the next contest, but the Top Ten are hard to
beat...

Michael

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 06:39:57PM +0100, martin f krafft wrote:

also sprach Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] [2009.02.17.1747 +0100]:

quoted

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

A shame that I didn't see the contest start. I would have had
a number of cases to add using Git

  - to track your ~ (cf. http://vcs-home.madduck.net)
  - to track /etc (cf. http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/etckeeper/)
  - as the backend for a service like snapshot.debian.net

Speaking of which I've done some initial testing a while ago
(http://glandium.org/blog/?p=182) and done some archive-wide testing
recently for which I still have to gather data and post about.

I also have some other use of git at work that I still have to post
about.

Cheers,

Mike

I've been feeling a bit ugfwiinic all the afternoon and I couldn't realize why,
but then I finally saw your post and I understood!

But Dscho, now I am sure that you missed that "git diff -odf" at the very core
of git functionality that certainly Linus implemented on day one and that surely
got lost due to an unfortunate SHA clash! 

Ciao
Sergio

Hi,

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 17:47, Johannes Schindelin
[off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

I managed to collect 10 candidates already, and since I did all the hard
work of collating them, I took the liberty of ordering them into a very
subjective order of ugfwiininess (pronounced "You-gah-wee-knee-ness").

How about using git to do a temporary 'svn stash'?
If you have changes in your svn working copy that you cannot commit
just yet, but you want to check out an earlier revision for whatever
reason, the current only solution in svn to that is to have a second
working copy. But no longer!
$ cd path/to/svn/repo
$ git init && git add . && git commit -m "save svn state"
$ svn revert -R *
$ svn update -r 42
$ # do whatever you need to do here
$ git reset --hard && rm .git

Does that qualify? ;)

Heh, do you actually use it?

Ciao,
Dscho

Hi,

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009, martin f krafft wrote:

also sprach Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] [2009.02.17.1747 +0100]:

quoted

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

A shame that I didn't see the contest start. I would have had
a number of cases to add using Git

  - to track your ~ (cf. http://vcs-home.madduck.net)
  - to track /etc (cf. http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/etckeeper/)
  - as the backend for a service like snapshot.debian.net
  - as a mail store and complete replacement of IMAP

anyway, enter me for round 2!!

Sure!

But I deem the first two being trumped by the large media...

If you could point me to the IMAP thing, I'd be interested personally, as 
I use Git to track all my mails in maildir format.

Ciao,
Dscho

quoted

This is also related to Martin Krafft's idea to sort of replace the 
Debian packaging management by using Git, but...

I had this idea? Well, maybe something related: vcs-pkg.org, which
is about using distributed VCS for distro package maintenance.

Yes, that's what I meant.

Anyway, thanks Johannes for the fun! :)

You're very welcome!

Ciao,
Dscho

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 00:49, Johannes Schindelin
[off-list ref] wrote:

Heh, do you actually use it?

Yup, at times when I need to work with an svn repository but cannot be
bothered to rev up git-svn for it :).

-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier

Johannes Schindelin:

Number 10:
Sergio Callegari describes how to manage opendocument (openoffice.org) files

Which is very nice, it saved me several megabytes of disk space :-)

Git was clearly intended to track source code stored as small ASCII
files; otherwise, 'git diff' would not be such an integral part of
Git.

Still, I have "git diff" working fine for OpenOffice Writer documents
here, using "oodiff" that I found somewhere I cannot remember...

Now, if only OpenOffice could be told not to store the documents as zip
files, but rather as a directory, I wouldn't have to fool Git using the
rezipper. Or perhaps one should implement support in Git to store zip
files expanded (and just create the .zip on checkout)?

Then one could even merge conflicts between concurrent edits.

-- 
\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

Errr... URL (of a blog), please?


Another candidate for UGFWIINI contest: Gitorial. Here is explanation

  ...this presentation was captured in the Git revision control
  system. Every commit has a commit message that explains the 'next
  slide' of the presentation. People can then view diffs between
  commits to quickly see what changed.

Well, it uses GitHub, not only Git, but...

http://github.com/blog/367-clojure-gitorial
http://larrytheliquid.com/2009/03/02/presenting-clojure-with-a-gitorial

........................................................................

And similar thing: Homoiconic. Here is explanation

  Homoiconic is an experiment in publishing code and words about code
  on a small scale.

  When I write, I will add files to the homoiconic git repository,
  organized by date. Code will be included in the posts and also in
  the folder with the posts that discuss them, so it's easy to
  download what you like. You can even download the entire thing as an
  archive if you want.

http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Hi,

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Jakub Narebski wrote:

Another candidate for UGFWIINI contest: Gitorial. Here is explanation

  ...this presentation was captured in the Git revision control
  system. Every commit has a commit message that explains the 'next
  slide' of the presentation. People can then view diffs between
  commits to quickly see what changed.

Well, it uses GitHub, not only Git, but...

http://github.com/blog/367-clojure-gitorial
http://larrytheliquid.com/2009/03/02/presenting-clojure-with-a-gitorial

........................................................................

And similar thing: Homoiconic. Here is explanation

  Homoiconic is an experiment in publishing code and words about code
  on a small scale.

  When I write, I will add files to the homoiconic git repository,
  organized by date. Code will be included in the posts and also in
  the folder with the posts that discuss them, so it's easy to
  download what you like. You can even download the entire thing as an
  archive if you want.

http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic

Definitely.  Both are registered for the next round.

Ciao,
Dscho

2009/2/17 Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref]:

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

       Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

Does using Git to track edits when proofreading a html/text document
(short story, novel, ...) count?

This is similar to the ODF <-> Git entry. Now all that needs to happen
is to replace the ZIP format with a git repository and create a plugin
for an ODF reader that makes git calls when doing the content tracking
checks.

- Reece

Hi,

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Reece Dunn wrote:

2009/2/17 Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref]:

quoted

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

       Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

Does using Git to track edits when proofreading a html/text document
(short story, novel, ...) count?

I'll count it, but I want (read-only) access to the repository as a proof 
that you actually use Git that way ;-)

Ciao,
Dscho

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 04:59:27PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

quoted

Does using Git to track edits when proofreading a html/text document
(short story, novel, ...) count?

I'll count it, but I want (read-only) access to the repository as a proof 
that you actually use Git that way ;-)

Is it really that unusual? I've been keeping academic papers in git for
years (and CVS before that -- blech), and I'm sure I'm not alone. Of
course I'm writing in LaTeX, which is arguably a programming language. ;)

BTW, --color-words is indispensable when dealing with things that aren't
line-oriented.

-Peff

Hi,

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Jeff King wrote:

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 04:59:27PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

quoted

quoted

Does using Git to track edits when proofreading a html/text document
(short story, novel, ...) count?

I'll count it, but I want (read-only) access to the repository as a proof 
that you actually use Git that way ;-)

Is it really that unusual? I've been keeping academic papers in git for
years (and CVS before that -- blech), and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Count me in.

I am interested in reading Reece's short stories, though.

Of course I'm writing in LaTeX, which is arguably a programming 
language. ;)

BTW, --color-words is indispensable when dealing with things that aren't
line-oriented.

Guess three times why I wrote --color-words...

You guessed it.  Academic papers written in LaTeX.

Ciao,
Dscho

2009/3/3 Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref]:

Hi,

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Jeff King wrote:

quoted

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 04:59:27PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

quoted

quoted

Does using Git to track edits when proofreading a html/text document
(short story, novel, ...) count?

I'll count it, but I want (read-only) access to the repository as a proof
that you actually use Git that way ;-)

Is it really that unusual? I've been keeping academic papers in git for
years (and CVS before that -- blech), and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Count me in.

I am interested in reading Reece's short stories, though.

I am not writing them (at the moment :)). I am just using git to
proofread stories by other people.

- Reece

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 06:27:27PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

I am interested in reading Reece's short stories, though.

I can only hope that they're git-themed (Linus fan-fiction?).

-Peff

Hi,

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009, Jeff King wrote:

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 06:27:27PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

quoted

I am interested in reading Reece's short stories, though.

I can only hope that they're git-themed (Linus fan-fiction?).

No, that is an intended purpose of Git.  To worship Linus.

Thus, it would not qualify.

Ciao,
Dscho

Jakub Narebski [off-list ref] writes:

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

[...]
 

Another candidate for UGFWIINI contest: Gitorial. Here is explanation

And similar thing: Homoiconic. Here is explanation

And here is yet another UGFWINII candidate: Flashbake. 
Here is explanation:

  Flashbake is a set of Python scripts that check your hot files for
  changes every 15 minutes, and checks in any changed files to a local
  git repository.  Flashbake records any changes made since the last
  check, annotating them with the current timezone on the
  system-clock, the weather in that timezone as fetched from Google,
  and the last three headlines with your by-line under them in your
  blog's RSS feed (I've been characterizing this as "Where am I,
  what's it like there, and what am I thinking about?"). It also
  records your computer's uptime.

  It is intendend illuminate the creative process in a way that often
  reveals the hidden stories behind the books we care about.

References:
===========
[1] "Flashbake: Free version-control for writers using git"
    by Cory Doctorow describes insporation for Flashbake
    http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/13/flashbake-free-versi.html
    http://craphound.com/?p=2171
[2] "Cory Doctorow on Lifestreaming Contextual Snapshots Using New
    Tool Flashbake" by Mark Krynsky
    http://lifestreamblog.com/cory-doctorow-on-lifestreaming-contextual-snapshots-using-new-tool-flashbake/
[3] Flashbake announcement on its author blog
    http://thecommandline.net/2009/02/13/flashbake/
[3] Flashbake home page
    http://bitbucketlabs.net/flashbake/

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Hi,

On Fri, 6 Mar 2009, Jakub Narebski wrote:

Jakub Narebski [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

[...]
 

quoted

Another candidate for UGFWIINI contest: Gitorial. Here is explanation

quoted

And similar thing: Homoiconic. Here is explanation

And here is yet another UGFWINII candidate: Flashbake. 

Thanks.  Accepted.

Ciao,
Dscho

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

[...]

Number 2:

At the GitTogether, Sam Vilain presented his idea to use Git as a DB backend:

	http://utsl.gen.nz/talks/git-db

Just think about it: committing by "INSERT INTO"!

And something very similar: "Using Git as a versioned data store
in Python" by John Wiegley (similar to 'shelve' which uses database)

  http://www.newartisans.com/2008/05/using-git-as-a-versioned-data-store-in-python.html
  http://github.com/jwiegley/git-issues/

And similar solution for Ruby

  http://github.com/georgi/git_store

by the way of GitHub Blog: 

  http://github.com/blog/374-git-as-a-data-store-in-python-and-ruby


P.S. When there would be next round of UGFWIINI contest?
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Hi,

On Wed, 11 Mar 2009, Jakub Narebski wrote:

P.S. When there would be next round of UGFWIINI contest?

Whenever I collected ten new participants...  You are helping ;-)

Ciao,
Dscho

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

As most of you probably did not find my blog yet, this may come as a
surprise to you, but it will not be the only surprise in this email.

[...]

Not exactly UGFWIINI yet, but:

  "Music collaboration via git?"
  http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1655-music-collaboration-via-git
  (sharing LilyPond source files for music notation).

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 08:08:04AM -0700, Jakub Narebski wrote:

Not exactly UGFWIINI yet, but:

  "Music collaboration via git?"
  http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1655-music-collaboration-via-git
  (sharing LilyPond source files for music notation).

I do something similar, though I am usually not writing in lilypond but
rather in ABC or human-readable chord charts with accompanying lyrics.
However, my band-mates are not git-literate, so I usually end up pulling
their versions directly from email into the working tree, and then
committing to git myself.

For added UGFWIINI, I also keep multitrack recording projects in the
same repo. Live single tracks are kept as pristine "source", and then
are mixed down (with filters and effects added) into a final product.
It's even driven by make. ;)

However, the source files are annoyingly large to work with in git, so I
keep them outside of the repo as immutable source and refer to them by
unique name. Only the ways in which they are filtered or combined are in
the repo.

-Peff

On 17 feb 2009, at 16:47, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Dear fans of Git,

a while ago I announced the UGFWIINI contest, a glorious battle of  
ideas
how to

	Use Git For What It Is Not Indended

I would like to submit

	http://www.ordecon.com/2009/04/22/is-git-more-than-just-a-version-control-system/

for the next round :)