[cap-talk] Choice of version control: s/svn/git/ (was Re: Polaris distribution is ready)

[Kevin Reid]

On Apr 27, 2010, at 19:18, Kenton Varda wrote:

> <flamewar>As for github, I haven't used it enough to make a very  
> informed judgment...  but what I can say is that every time I click  
> on a link and find myself at github, I end up terribly confused.
>
> The most prominent things on the project landing page should be:
> 1) The project introduction.
> 2) A download link.
>
> Let's look at a github project page:
> http://github.com/ninjudd/clojure-protobuf
>

[snip usability critique which I don't disagree with]

I think most of these faults can be compressed into this description:  
Github pages are not designed to be "information about this project",  
but rather "a view of this Git repository". Many of the prominent  
elements are relevant to someone who wants to *look at the code*, or  
particularly, *this person's version of this code*.

It also has a hefty dose of Web 2.0 'n Social Web Site styling, not  
necessarily well applied.

I don't think Github is *trying to be* a good about-this-project site.  
Think of it as being more like *just* the Source tab of Google Code,  
for example.

Note that since Git is a DVCS, there are many repositories; if some  
project's developers are in the habit of using Github then there are  
*many* Github pages
   http://github.com/user1/fooproject
   http://github.com/user2/fooproject
etc. It would be *wrong* to make every single one of these a copy of  
the project info page; there should be *one* central project info page  
which links to whichever repository/ies are relevant.


-- 
Kevin Reid                                  <http://switchb.org/kpreid/>