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   9                         <h1>Dscho's blog</h1>
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  11                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  12                         <tr><th>Table of contents:</th></tr>
  13                         <tr><td>
  14                         <p><ul>
  15                         <li><a href=#1233022809>27 Jan 2009 Fun with calculus after midnight</a>
  16                         <li><a href=#1232997290>26 Jan 2009 Valgrind takes a loooong time</a>
  17                         <li><a href=#1232927812>26 Jan 2009 A day full of rebase... and a little valgrind</a>
  18                         <li><a href=#1232888842>25 Jan 2009 Regular diff with word coloring (as opposed to word diff)</a>
  19                         <li><a href=#1232828715>24 Jan 2009 Ideas for a major revamp of the <i>--preserve-merges</i> handling in <i>git rebase</i></a>
  20                         <li><a href=#1232778113>24 Jan 2009 Thoughts about <i>interactive rebase</i></a>
  21                         <li><a href=#1232745071>23 Jan 2009 Git Logos</a>
  22                         <li><a href=#1232742582>23 Jan 2009 How to deal with files that are not source code when merging</a>
  23                         <li><a href=#1232626236>22 Jan 2009 The UGFWIINI contest</a>
  24                         <li><a href=#1232611542>22 Jan 2009 Top-posting</a>
  25                         </ul></p>
  26                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=37f819e4ce4788efd55091e9e5d0c562f023c096;f=index.html>Older posts</a>
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  36                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  37                         <tr><th>About this blog:</th></tr>
  38                         <tr><td>
  39                         <p>It is an active <a href=http://repo.or.cz/w/git/dscho.git?a=blob;f=source-1232626236.txt;h=1edde0467a>abuse</a> of <a href=http://repo.or.cz/>repo.or.cz</a>,
  40                         letting gitweb unpack the objects in the current tip of the branch <i>blog</i>,
  41                         including the images and the RSS feed.
  42                         </p><p>
  43                         Publishing means running a script that collects the posts, turns them into
  44                         HTML, makes sure all the images are checked in, and pushes the result.
  45                         </p><p>
  46                         This blog also serves to grace the world with Dscho's random thoughts on and
  47                         around Git.
  48                         </p>
  49                         </td></tr></table>
  50                         <br>
  51                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  52                         <tr><th>Links:</th></tr>
  53                         <tr><td>
  54                         <ul>
  55                         <li> <a href=http://git-scm.com/>Git's homepage</a>
  56                         <li> <a href=http://gitster.livejournal.com/>Junio's blog</a>
  57                         <li> <a href=http://www.spearce.org/>Shawn's blog</a> seems to be sitting
  58                               idle ever since he started working for Google...
  59                         <li> <a href=http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/>Linus' blog</a> does not
  60                               talk much about Git...
  61                         <li> Scott Chacon's <a href=http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/>Why Git is better
  62                              than X</a> site
  63                         <li> <a href=http://vilain.net/>The blog of mugwump</a>
  64                         <li> <a href=http://blogs.gnome.org/newren/>Elijah Newren</a> chose the
  65                               same path as Cogito, offering an alternative porcelain (an approach
  66                               that is doomed in my opinion)
  67                         <li> <a href=http://msysgit.googlecode.com/>The msysGit project</a>, a (mostly)
  68                               failed experiment to lure the many Windows developers out there to
  69                               contribute to Open Source for a change.
  70                         </ul>
  71                         </td></tr></table>
  72                         <br>
  73                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  74                         <tr><th>Google Ads:</th></tr>
  75                         <tr><td>
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  87                         </td></tr></table>
  88                         </div>
  89                         <h6>Tuesday, 27th of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Tiger</h6>
  90                         <a name=1233022809>
  91                         <h2>Fun with calculus after midnight</h2>
  92
  93                         <p>
  94                         </p><p>
  95                         Problem: what is the shortest way of defining a variable consisting of <i>N</i>
  96                         spaces?  I.e. for <i>N=80</i> the result will look something like
  97                         </p><p>
  98                         <table
  99                                                         border=1 bgcolor=black>
 100                                                 <tr><td bgcolor=lightblue colspan=3>
 101                                 <pre>                                                                </pre>
 102                         </td></tr>
 103                         <tr><td>
 104                                 <table cellspacing=5 border=0
 105                                          style="color:white;">
 106                                 <tr><td>
 107                                         <pre>
 108 s='    '
 109 s="$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s$s"
 110 </pre>
 111                                                         </td></tr>
 112                                                         </table>
 113                                                 </td></tr>
 114                                                 </table>
 115                         </p><p>
 116                         Let's see.  Let the minimal number of characters needed be <i>A(N)</i>.  For
 117                         simplicity, let's say that we only use one variable.  Then, certainly, <i>A(N)</i>
 118                         cannot be larger than <i>5+N</i>, as we could define a variable using 1 character
 119                         for the name, 1 for the equal sign, 2 for the quotes, and one for the semicolon
 120                         or newline character (whichever).
 121                         </p><p>
 122                         Now, let's assume <i>N</i> is a product <i>K*L</i>.  Then certainly, <i>A(N)</i> cannot
 123                         be larger than <i>A(K)+5+2*L</i>, as we could first define a variable that has
 124                         exactly <i>K</i> spaces and then use that to define the end result (in the example
 125                         above, <i>K=5</i> and <i>L=20</i>).
 126                         </p><p>
 127                         So, for which <i>N=K*L</i> is it better to use two definitions instead of one?
 128                         </p><p>
 129                         Simple calculus says that <i>5+K*L>5+K+5+2*L</i> must hold true, or (after some
 130                         scribbling): <i>L>1+7/(K-2)</i>. Which means that it makes no sense to define
 131                         a variable with 1 or 2 spaces first, which is kinda obvious (writing '$s'
 132                         alone would use two characters, so we could write the spaces right away).
 133                         </p><p>
 134                         But what for the other values?  For <i>K=3</i>, <i>L</i> must be at least 9 to make
 135                         sense (in other words, <i>N</i> must be at least 27).  For <i>K=4</i>, <i>L</i> needs
 136                         to be greater or equal to 5 (<i>N>=20</i>), the next pairs are <i>(5,4)</i>,
 137                         <i>(6,3)</i>, <i>(7,3)</i>, <i>(8,3)</i>, <i>(9,3)</i> and starting with <i>K=10</i>, any
 138                         <i>L>1</i> makes sense.
 139                         </p><p>
 140                         The second definition can also contain spaces at the end, however, so for any
 141                         <i>N=K*L+M</i>, <i>A(N)</i> cannot be larger than <i>A(K)+5+2*L+M</i>.
 142                         </p><p>
 143                         Not surprisingly, this leads to exactly the same <i>L>1+7/(K-2)</i> (as we can
 144                         append the <i>M</i> spaces in the last definition, no matter if we use 1 or
 145                         2 definitions).
 146                         </p><p>
 147                         However, that means that as soon as <i>N>=18</i>, we should use two definitions,
 148                         prior to that, it makes no sense.
 149                         </p><p>
 150                         So for <i>N<18</i>, <i>A(N)=5+N</i>.
 151                         </p><p>
 152                         But what <i>K</i> should one choose, i.e. how many spaces in the first definition?
 153                         In other words, what is <i>A(N)</i> given that we use two definitions?
 154                         </p><p>
 155                         That will have to wait for another midnight.  Just a teaser: <i>A(80)=36</i>.  Oh,
 156                         and with 80 characters, you can define a string of 9900 spaces...
 157                         </p>
 158                         <h6>Monday, 26th of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Dog</h6>
 159                         <a name=1232997290>
 160                         <h2>Valgrind takes a loooong time</h2>
 161
 162                         <p>
 163                         </p><p>
 164                         Yesterday, I started a run on a fast machine, and it took roughly 5.5
 165                         hours by the machine's clock.
 166                         </p><p>
 167                         And of course, I redirected stdout only... *sigh*
 168                         </p><p>
 169                         Which triggered a Google search how to force redirection of all the output
 170                         in the test scripts to a file and the terminal at the same time.
 171                         </p><p>
 172                         It seems as if that is not easily done.  I tried
 173                         <center><table
 174                                                         border=1 bgcolor=black>
 175                                                 <tr><td bgcolor=lightblue colspan=3>
 176                                 <pre>                                                                </pre>
 177                         </td></tr>
 178                         <tr><td>
 179                                 <table cellspacing=5 border=0
 180                                          style="color:white;">
 181                                 <tr><td>
 182                                         <pre>
 183 exec >(tee out) 2>&1
 184 </pre>
 185                                                         </td></tr>
 186                                                         </table>
 187                                                 </td></tr>
 188                                                 </table></center>
 189                         </p><p>
 190                         but that did not work: it mumbled something about invalid file handles or some
 191                         such.
 192                         </p><p>
 193                         The only solution I found was:
 194                         <center><table
 195                                                         border=1 bgcolor=black>
 196                                                 <tr><td bgcolor=lightblue colspan=3>
 197                                 <pre>                                                                </pre>
 198                         </td></tr>
 199                         <tr><td>
 200                                 <table cellspacing=5 border=0
 201                                          style="color:white;">
 202                                 <tr><td>
 203                                         <pre>
 204 mkpipe pipe
 205 tee out < pipe &
 206 exec > pipe 2>&1
 207 </pre>
 208                                                         </td></tr>
 209                                                         </table>
 210                                                 </td></tr>
 211                                                 </table></center>
 212                         </p><p>
 213                         That is a problem for parallel execution, though, so I am still looking for a
 214                         better way to do it.
 215                         </p><p>
 216                         Once I have the output, it is relatively easy to analyze it, as I already
 217                         made a script which disects the output into valgrind output and the test
 218                         case it came from, then groups by common valgrind output and shows the
 219                         result to the user.
 220                         </p>
 221                         <h6>Monday, 26th of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Rat</h6>
 222                         <a name=1232927812>
 223                         <h2>A day full of rebase... and a little valgrind</h2>
 224
 225                         <p>
 226                         </p><p>
 227                         I think that I am progressing nicely with my rebase -p work, so much so
 228                         that I will soon be able to use it myself to work on topic branches <u>and</u>
 229                         rebase all the time without much hassle.
 230                         </p><p>
 231                         In other words, I would like to be able to rebase all my topic branches
 232                         to Junio's <i>next</i> branch whenever that has new commits.  With a single
 233                         rebase.
 234                         </p><p>
 235                         And finally, I got the idea of the thing Stephen implemented for dropped
 236                         commits; however, I am quite sure I do not like it.
 237                         </p><p>
 238                         So what are "dropped" commits?
 239                         </p><p>
 240                         When you rebase, chances are that the upstream already has applied at
 241                         least some of your patches.  So we filter those out with <i>--cherry-pick</i>.
 242                         Stephen calls those "dropped" commits.
 243                         </p><p>
 244                         Then he goes on to reinvent the "$REWRITTEN" system: a directory containing
 245                         the mappings of old commit names to new commit names.  That is easily fixed.
 246                         </p><p>
 247                         But worse, he substitutes the dropped commits with their <u>parents</u>, instead
 248                         of substituting them with the corresponding commits in upstream.
 249                         </p><p>
 250                         I guess this will be a medium-sized fight on the mailing list, depending
 251                         how much energy Stephen wants to put in to defend his strategy.
 252                         </p><p>
 253                         Anyway, I finally got to a point where only three of the tests are failing,
 254                         t3404, t3410 and t3412.  Somewhat disappointing is t3404, as its name pretends
 255                         not to exercize -p at all.  Oh well, I guess I'll see what is broken tomorrow.
 256                         </p><p>
 257                         Another part of the day was dedicated to the Valgrind patch series, which
 258                         should give us yet another level of code quality.
 259                         </p><p>
 260                         After having confused myself with several diverging/obsolete branches, I did
 261                         indeed finally manage to send that patch series off.  Woohoo.
 262                         </p>
 263                         <h6>Sunday, 25th of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Goat</h6>
 264                         <a name=1232888842>
 265                         <h2>Regular diff with word coloring (as opposed to word diff)</h2>
 266
 267                         <p>
 268                         </p><p>
 269                         You know, if I were a bit faster with everything I do, I could do so much more!
 270                         </p><p>
 271                         For example, Junio's idea that you could keep showing a regular diff, only
 272                         coloring the words that have been removed/deleted.
 273                         </p><p>
 274                         Just imagine looking at the diff of a long line in LaTeX source code.  It
 275                         should be much nicer to the eye to see the complete removed/added sentences
 276                         instead of one sentence with colored words in between, disrupting your read
 277                         flow.
 278                         </p><p>
 279                         Compare these two versions:
 280                         </p><p>
 281                         Regular diff with colored words:
 282                         <blockquote><tt>
 283                         -This sentence has a <font color=red>tyop</font> in it.<br>
 284                         +This sentence has a <font color=green>typo</font> in it.<br>
 285                         </tt></blockquote>
 286                         </p><p>
 287                         Word diff:
 288                         <blockquote><tt>
 289                         This sentence has a <font color=red>tyop</font><font color=green>typo</font> in it.<br>
 290                         </tt></blockquote>
 291                         </p><p>
 292                         And it should not be hard to do at all!
 293                         </p><p>
 294                         In <i>diff_words_show()</i>, we basically get the minus lines as
 295                         <i>diff_words->minus</i> and the plus lines as <i>diff_words->plus</i>.  The
 296                         function then prepares the word lists and calls the xdiff engine to do all the
 297                         hard work, analyzing the result from xdiff and printing the lines in
 298                         <i>fn_out_diff_words_aux()</i>.
 299                         </p><p>
 300                         So all that would have to be changed would be to <u>record</u> the positions
 301                         of the removed/added words instead of outputting them, and at the end printing
 302                         the minus/plus buffers using the recorded information to color the words.
 303                         </p><p>
 304                         This would involve
 305                         </p><p>
 306                         <ul>
 307                         <li>adding two new members holding the offsets in the <i>diff_words</i>
 308                         struct,
 309                         <li>having a special handling for that mode in
 310                         <i>fn_out_diff_words_aux()</i> that appends the offsets and
 311                         returns,
 312                         <li>adding a function <i>show_lines_with_colored_words()</i> that
 313                         outputs a buffer with a given prefix ('-' or '+') and coloring the words at
 314                         given offsets with a given color,
 315                         <li>modify <i>diff_words_show()</i> to call that function for the "special
 316                         case: only removal" and at the end of the function, and
 317                         <li> disabling the <i>fwrite()</i> at the end of <i>diff_words_show()</i> for that
 318                         mode.
 319                         </ul>
 320                         </p><p>
 321                         Of course, the hardest part is to find a nice user interface for that.  Maybe
 322                         <i>--colored-words</i>? &#x263a;
 323                         </p>
 324                         <h6>Saturday, 24th of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Pig</h6>
 325                         <a name=1232828715>
 326                         <h2>Ideas for a major revamp of the <i>--preserve-merges</i> handling in <i>git rebase</i></h2>
 327
 328                         <p>
 329                         </p><p>
 330                         As probably everybody agrees, the code to preserve merges is a big mess
 331                         right now.
 332                         </p><p>
 333                         Worse, the whole concept of "pick <merge-sha1>" just does not fly well.
 334                         </p><p>
 335                         So I started a <u>major</u> cleanup, which happens to reduce the code very
 336                         nicely so far.
 337                         </p><p>
 338                         It will take a few days to flesh out, I guess, but these are the major
 339                         ideas of my work:
 340                         </p><p>
 341                         <b>pick $sha1</b><br>
 342                         <blockquote>will only work on non-merges in the future.</blockquote>
 343                         <b>merge $sha1 [$sha1...] was $sha1 Merge ...</b><br>
 344                         <blockquote>will merge the given list of commits into the current HEAD, for
 345                                 the user's reference and to keep up-to-date what was rewritten,
 346                                 the original merge is shown after the keyword "was" (which is not
 347                                 a valid SHA-1, luckily).</blockquote>
 348                         <b>goto $sha1</b><br>
 349                         <blockquote>will reset the HEAD to the given commit.</blockquote>
 350                         <b>$sha1'</b><br>
 351                         <blockquote>for merge and goto, if a $sha1 ends in a single quote, the
 352                                 rewritten commit is substituted (if there is one).</blockquote>
 353                         </p><p>
 354                         Example:
 355                         </p><p>
 356 <pre>
 357 A - B - - - E
 358   \       /
 359     C - D
 360 </pre>
 361                         </p><p>
 362                         could yield this TODO script:
 363                         </p><p>
 364 <pre>
 365         pick A
 366         pick C
 367         pick D
 368         goto A'
 369         pick B
 370         merge D' was E
 371 </pre>
 372                         </p><p>
 373                         This should lead to a much more intuitive user experience.
 374                         </p><p>
 375                         I am very sorry if somebody actually scripted <i>rebase -i -p</i> (by setting
 376                         GIT_EDITOR with a script), but I am very certain that this cleanup is
 377                         absolutely necessary to make <i>rebase -i -p</i> useful.
 378                         </p>
 379                         <h6>Saturday, 24th of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Dragon</h6>
 380                         <a name=1232778113>
 381                         <h2>Thoughts about <i>interactive rebase</i></h2>
 382
 383                         <p>
 384                         </p><p>
 385                         Somebody mentioned that my <i>my-next</i> branch is a mess, as it mixes all
 386                         kinds of topics.
 387                         </p><p>
 388                         That is undeniably true, however, there is a good reason that I do not
 389                         have a lot of topic branches: I work on more than just one computer.
 390                         </p><p>
 391                         To make sure that I do not lose a commit by mistake, I always <i>rebase -i</i>
 392                         the <i>my-next</i> branch of the computer I happen to work on on top of the
 393                         <i>my-next</i> branch I fetch from <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a>.
 394                         </p><p>
 395                         To rebase a lot of topic branches at the same time seems a bit complicated.
 396                         But that is actually what the <i>-p</i> option (preserve merges) is all about.
 397                         </p><p>
 398                         The only problem is that the code for <i>rebase -i -p</i> has been messed up
 399                         recently, quite successfully, I might add.
 400                         </p><p>
 401                         Worse, some people are pushing for a completely and total unintuitive syntax.
 402                         </p><p>
 403                         So maybe I will start to work on <i>-p</i> again, for my own use (I should learn
 404                         to heed the principle more: work on things I can use myself).
 405                         </p><p>
 406                         My current idea is to implement a "goto" statement that will jump to another
 407                         commit.  To make it easily usable, I will add the semantics that "goto" will
 408                         always try to go to the <u>rewritten</u> version of the given commit; if the user
 409                         wanted to have the original commit, she has to paste the unabbreviated commit
 410                         name.
 411                         </p><p>
 412                         The more I think about it, the more I actually like this idea &#x263a;
 413                         </p><p>
 414                         Of course, working on this little project means that I will have to cope with
 415                         that ugly code again.  *urgh*
 416                         </p>
 417                         <h6>Friday, 23rd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Pig</h6>
 418                         <a name=1232745071>
 419                         <h2>Git Logos</h2>
 420
 421                         <p>
 422                         </p><p>
 423                         The other day, when I did not exactly have too much time on my hands, but
 424                         definitely too much motivation, I played around creating several logos.
 425                         </p><p>
 426                         An ambigram (if you turn it 180 degrees around the appropriate axis, it looks
 427                         exactly the same as unrotated):
 428                         </p><p>
 429                         <center>
 430                                 <table border=0>
 431                                         <tr>
 432                                                 <td align=center>
 433                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 434                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-ambigram.svg" width=317 />
 435                                                 </td>
 436                                         </tr>
 437                                         <tr>
 438                                                 <td align=center>
 439                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-ambigram.svg>git-ambigram.svg</a>
 440                                                 </td>
 441                                         </tr>
 442                                 </table>
 443                         </center>
 444                         </p><p>
 445                         A play on gitk:
 446                         </p><p>
 447                         <center>
 448                                 <table border=0>
 449                                         <tr>
 450                                                 <td align=center>
 451                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 452                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-gitk-logo.svg" width=325 />
 453                                                 </td>
 454                                         </tr>
 455                                         <tr>
 456                                                 <td align=center>
 457                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-gitk-logo.svg>git-gitk-logo.svg</a>
 458                                                 </td>
 459                                         </tr>
 460                                 </table>
 461                         </center>
 462                         </p><p>
 463                         A play on the test you have to go through before getting new glasses:
 464                         </p><p>
 465                         <center>
 466                                 <table border=0>
 467                                         <tr>
 468                                                 <td align=center>
 469                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 470                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-visual-test.svg" width=325 />
 471                                                 </td>
 472                                         </tr>
 473                                         <tr>
 474                                                 <td align=center>
 475                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-visual-test.svg>git-visual-test.svg</a>
 476                                                 </td>
 477                                         </tr>
 478                                 </table>
 479                         </center>
 480                         </p><p>
 481                         This is Henrik Nyh's logo (converted to .svg by yours truly):
 482                         </p><p>
 483                         <center>
 484                                 <table border=0>
 485                                         <tr>
 486                                                 <td align=center>
 487                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 488                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=gitlogo.svg" width=165 />
 489                                                 </td>
 490                                         </tr>
 491                                         <tr>
 492                                                 <td align=center>
 493                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=gitlogo.svg>gitlogo.svg</a>
 494                                                 </td>
 495                                         </tr>
 496                                 </table>
 497                         </center>
 498                         </p><p>
 499                         And of course, the original logo...
 500                         </p><p>
 501                         <center>
 502                                 <table border=0>
 503                                         <tr>
 504                                                 <td align=center>
 505                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 506                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=original-git-logo.svg" width=165 />
 507                                                 </td>
 508                                         </tr>
 509                                         <tr>
 510                                                 <td align=center>
 511                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=original-git-logo.svg>original-git-logo.svg</a>
 512                                                 </td>
 513                                         </tr>
 514                                 </table>
 515                         </center>
 516                         </p><p>
 517                         Maybe some of you have fun with them...
 518                         </p>
 519                         <h6>Friday, 23rd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Pig</h6>
 520                         <a name=1232742582>
 521                         <h2>How to deal with files that are not source code when merging</h2>
 522
 523                         <p>
 524                         </p><p>
 525                         Last week, one of the mentors of last year's <a href=http://code.google.com/soc>
 526                         Summer of Code</a> mentioned the idea that merge strategies are in dear need
 527                         for file types other than source code.
 528                         </p><p>
 529                         I think this idea is awesome, even if I cannot bring myself to believe that
 530                         any of the file types would make a good Summer of Code project: either they
 531                         are too complicated (think raster images such as .png or even .jpg), or they
 532                         are too straight-forward (think LaTeX, where all that is needed is a good
 533                         graphical user interface to inspect the three versions: <i>ours</i>, <i>baseline</i>
 534                         and <i>theirs</i>).
 535                         </p><p>
 536                         The LaTeX idea would be a good project for me to mentor, though: I have a
 537                         pretty clear idea how it should be done; I just lack the time (and motivation)
 538                         to do it myself.
 539                         </p><p>
 540                         As for OpenOffice text documents, vector graphics (such as .svg), or more
 541                         specific data such as spreadsheets, I think that all of these are really
 542                         difficult: the problem is not so much the implementation (i.e. the programming
 543                         part of it), but the design.
 544                         </p><p>
 545                         This design should involve much more than a Summer of Code project is about:
 546                         you would need to survey users' expectations, and at least the mentor -- if
 547                         not the student -- would need to be an expert in usability questions, which
 548                         is rather unlikely in the realm of Open Source.
 549                         </p><p>
 550                         Maybe this is the missing part in Open Source: we have many brilliant
 551                         programmers, but next to nobody with a good idea how to design intuitive
 552                         user interfaces.
 553                         </p><p>
 554                         That might be related to the fact that brilliant software engineers, as they
 555                         can be found in Open Source, are not exactly known for their social skills,
 556                         a human trait that seems to be a very important prerequisite for designing
 557                         intuitive user interfaces.
 558                         </p><p>
 559                         Well, I have <a href=http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/SoC2009Ideas#head-6188833471f79f277e162ef9fbe1592aa10b5f6c>
 560                         added</a> the proposal to Git's Summer of Code idea page on the Git Wiki; We will
 561                         see what comes out of it.
 562                         </p>
 563                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Goat</h6>
 564                         <a name=1232626236>
 565                         <h2>The UGFWIINI contest</h2>
 566
 567                         <p>
 568                         </p><p>
 569                         Just in case somebody finds this blog, here is a challenge.  Inspired by my
 570                         own little hack (this blog), I announce the "Using Git For What It Is Not
 571                         Intended" contest.
 572                         </p><p>
 573                         And it is especially cool, since the acronym sounds cool!  You might miss
 574                         this fact if you do no know that I pronounce the "F" like an "A" so that
 575                         it sounds cool.
 576                         </p><p>
 577                         This will be a running contest; whenever I have 10 valid applications, I
 578                         will announce a winner on the Git mailing list.
 579                         </p><p>
 580                         So, what accounts for a valid application?
 581                         </p><p>
 582                         <ul>
 583                         <li> You must use a Git program (the term is used loosely here, GitWeb is
 584                              considered a Git program, for example).
 585                         <li> The program must be intended for something completely different than
 586                              what you are using it for.  E.g. GitWeb -- which was intended to let
 587                              you browse through the history using your web browser -- is used
 588                              to serve a blog to the wide world.
 589                         <li> You must be able to prove that you actually used the Git program to
 590                              the purpose you claim, preferably in a live demonstration like this
 591                              one.
 592                         <li> Nobody and nothing must be harmed in the process (except your
 593                              laughing muscle, that's okay).
 594                         </ul>
 595                         </p><p>
 596                         So, how does such an abuse look like?
 597                         </p><p>
 598                         <ul>
 599                         <li> ... like this blog.
 600                         <li> Managing your mail (in maildir format) in a Git repository.
 601                         <li> Finding duplicate files by
 602                         <table
 603                                                         border=1 bgcolor=black>
 604                                                 <tr><td bgcolor=lightblue colspan=3>
 605                                 <pre>                                                                </pre>
 606                         </td></tr>
 607                         <tr><td>
 608                                 <table cellspacing=5 border=0
 609                                          style="color:white;">
 610                                 <tr><td>
 611                                         <pre>
 612 $ git init
 613 $ git add .
 614 $ git ls-files --stage | sort -k2 | uniq -d -s7 -w40
 615 </pre>
 616                                                         </td></tr>
 617                                                         </table>
 618                                                 </td></tr>
 619                                                 </table>
 620                         <li> Abusing the Git alias mechanism to call scripts defined directly in
 621                              the config.
 622                         </ul>
 623                         </p><p>
 624                         I am really looking forward to all of your submissions... *chuckles*
 625                         </p><p>
 626                         </p>
 627                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Snake</h6>
 628                         <a name=1232611542>
 629                         <h2>Top-posting</h2>
 630
 631                         <p>
 632                         </p><p>
 633                         Okay, last post for a while.  But this is something that is nagging me
 634                         tremendously.  I should probably just let go, but in my deepest inner self,
 635                         really close to my heart, I refuse to believe that any human beings could
 636                         be incapable of certain degrees of reason.
 637                         </p><p>
 638                         Take the example of top-posting.  Everybody who read a top-posted email
 639                         knows that you have to scroll down, possibly weeding through tons of
 640                         pages to find out what the heck the author of the last reply was replying
 641                         to.
 642                         </p><p>
 643                         Never mind that it would take the author of the reply just a couple of
 644                         seconds to remove all the irrelevant stuff -- as she already knows what
 645                         is the relevant part, saving minutes, in case of mailing lists hours,
 646                         easily, to the readers who otherwise would have to discern what is
 647                         irrelevant and what is relevant first.
 648                         </p><p>
 649                         It is a horrible time waste.  But of course not for the top-poster.
 650                         </p><p>
 651                         The problem is that I frequently run into such people, and when I write
 652                         them a polite mail, explaining to them that it is impolite to top-post,
 653                         and why, the answers I get sometimes make me check if the sky is still up
 654                         and the earth down.  Yesterday was an example of such a dubitable
 655                         pleasure.
 656                         </p><p>
 657                         Most funny are the ridiculous attempts by those persons at explaining why
 658                         top-posting is <i>so</i> much superior to anything else.
 659                         </p><p>
 660                         Which is good, because if they were not that funny, they would be pretty sad.
 661                         </p>
 662                 </div>
 663         </body>
 664 </html>