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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><ol>
  15                         <li><a href=#1232742582>23 Jan 2009 How to deal with files that are not source code when merging</a>
  16                         <li><a href=#1232626236>22 Jan 2009 The UGFWIINI contest</a>
  17                         <li><a href=#1232611542>22 Jan 2009 Top-posting</a>
  18                         <li><a href=#1232607201>22 Jan 2009 Sverre's hat</a>
  19                         <li><a href=#1232604722>22 Jan 2009 Let there be images!</a>
  20                         <li><a href=#1232599693>22 Jan 2009 My blog has style</a>
  21                         <li><a href=#1232589695>22 Jan 2009 My new blog system... bloGit</a>
  22                         </ol></p>
  23                         </td></tr></table>
  24                         <br>
  25                         <div style="text-align:right;">
  26                         <a href="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=blog;f=blog.rss"
  27                            title="Subscribe to my RSS feed"
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  31                         <br>
  32                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  33                         <tr><th>Links:</th></tr>
  34                         <tr><td>
  35                         <ul>
  36                         <li> <a href=http://git-scm.com/>Git's homepage</a>
  37                         <li> <a href=http://gitster.livejournal.com/>Junio's blog</a>
  38                         <li> <a href=http://www.spearce.org/>Shawn's blog</a> seems to be sitting
  39                               idle ever since he started working for Google...
  40                         <li> <a href=http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/>Linus' blog</a> does not
  41                               talk much about Git...
  42                         <li> Scott Chacon's <a href=http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/>Why Git is better
  43                              than X</a> site
  44                         <li> <a href=http://vilain.net/>The blog of mugwump</a>
  45                         <li> <a href=http://blogs.gnome.org/newren/>Elijah Newren</a> chose the
  46                               same path as Cogito, offering an alternative porcelain (an approach
  47                               that is doomed in my opinion)
  48                         <li> <a href=http://msysgit.googlecode.com/>The msysGit project</a>, a (mostly)
  49                               failed experiment to lure the many Windows developers out there to
  50                               contribute to Open Source for a change.
  51                         </ul>
  52                         </td></tr></table>
  53                         <br>
  54                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  55                         <tr><th>Google Ads:</th></tr>
  56                         <tr><td align=center>
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  68                         </td></tr></table>
  69                         </div>
  70                         <h6>Friday, 23rd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Pig</h6>
  71                         <a name=1232742582>
  72                         <h2>How to deal with files that are not source code when merging</h2>
  73
  74                         <p>
  75                         </p><p>
  76                         Last week, one of the mentors of last year's <a href=http://code.google.com/soc>
  77                         Summer of Code</a> mentioned the idea that merge strategies are in dear need
  78                         for file types other than source code.
  79                         </p><p>
  80                         I think this idea is awesome, even if I cannot bring myself to believe that
  81                         any of the file types would make a good Summer of Code project: either they
  82                         are too complicated (think raster images such as .png or even .jpg), or they
  83                         are too straight-forward (think LaTeX, where all that is needed is a good
  84                         graphical user interface to inspect the three versions: <i>ours</i>, <i>baseline</i>
  85                         and <i>theirs</i>).
  86                         </p><p>
  87                         The LaTeX idea would be a good project for me to mentor, though: I have a
  88                         pretty clear idea how it should be done; I just lack the time (and motivation)
  89                         to do it myself.
  90                         </p><p>
  91                         As for OpenOffice text documents, vector graphics (such as .svg), or more
  92                         specific data such as spreadsheets, I think that all of these are really
  93                         difficult: the problem is not so much the implementation (i.e. the programming
  94                         part of it), but the design.
  95                         </p><p>
  96                         This design should involve much more than a Summer of Code project is about:
  97                         you would need to survey users' expectations, and at least the mentor -- if
  98                         not the student -- would need to be an expert in usability questions, which
  99                         is rather unlikely in the realm of Open Source.
 100                         </p><p>
 101                         Maybe this is the missing part in Open Source: we have many brilliant
 102                         programmers, but next to nobody with a good idea how to design intuitive
 103                         user interfaces.
 104                         </p><p>
 105                         That might be related to the fact that brilliant software engineers, as they
 106                         can be found in Open Source, are not exactly known for their social skills,
 107                         a human trait that seems to be a very important prerequisite for designing
 108                         intuitive user interfaces.
 109                         </p><p>
 110                         Well, I have <a href=http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/SoC2009Ideas#head-6188833471f79f277e162ef9fbe1592aa10b5f6c>
 111                         added the proposal to Git's Summer of Code idea page on the Git Wiki; We will
 112                         see what comes out of it.
 113                         </p>
 114                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Goat</h6>
 115                         <a name=1232626236>
 116                         <h2>The UGFWIINI contest</h2>
 117
 118                         <p>
 119                         </p><p>
 120                         Just in case somebody finds this blog, here is a challenge.  Inspired by my
 121                         own little hack (this blog), I announce the "Using Git For What It Is Not
 122                         Intended" contest.
 123                         </p><p>
 124                         And it is especially cool, since the acronym sounds cool!  You might miss
 125                         this fact if you do no know that I pronounce the "F" like an "A" so that
 126                         it sounds cool.
 127                         </p><p>
 128                         This will be a running contest; whenever I have 10 valid applications, I
 129                         will announce a winner on the Git mailing list.
 130                         </p><p>
 131                         So, what accounts for a valid application?
 132                         </p><p>
 133                         <ul>
 134                         <li> You must use a Git program (the term is used loosely here, GitWeb is
 135                              considered a Git program, for example).
 136                         <li> The program must be intended for something completely different than
 137                              what you are using it for.  E.g. GitWeb -- which was intended to let
 138                              you browse through the history using your web browser -- is used
 139                              to serve a blog to the wide world.
 140                         <li> You must be able to prove that you actually used the Git program to
 141                              the purpose you claim, preferably in a live demonstration like this
 142                              one.
 143                         <li> Nobody and nothing must be harmed in the process (except your
 144                              laughing muscle, that's okay).
 145                         </ul>
 146                         </p><p>
 147                         So, how does such an abuse look like?
 148                         </p><p>
 149                         <ul>
 150                         <li> ... like this blog.
 151                         <li> Managing your mail (in maildir format) in a Git repository.
 152                         <li> Finding duplicate files by
 153                         <table
 154                                                         border=1 bgcolor=black>
 155                                                 <tr><td bgcolor=lightblue colspan=3>
 156                                                         &nbsp;
 157                                                 </td></tr>
 158                                                 <tr><td>
 159                                                         <table cellspacing=5 border=0
 160                                                                  style="color:white;">
 161                                                         <tr><td>
 162                                         <pre>
 163 $ git init
 164 $ git add .
 165 $ git ls-files --stage | sort -k2 | uniq -d -s7 -w40
 166                 </pre>
 167                                                         </td></tr>
 168                                                         </table>
 169                                                 </td></tr>
 170                                                 </table>
 171                         <li> Abusing the Git alias mechanism to call scripts defined directly in
 172                              the config.
 173                         </ul>
 174                         </p><p>
 175                         I am really looking forward to all of your submissions... *chuckles*
 176                         </p><p>
 177                         </p>
 178                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Snake</h6>
 179                         <a name=1232611542>
 180                         <h2>Top-posting</h2>
 181
 182                         <p>
 183                         </p><p>
 184                         Okay, last post for a while.  But this is something that is nagging me
 185                         tremendously.  I should probably just let go, but in my deepest inner self,
 186                         really close to my heart, I refuse to believe that any human beings could
 187                         be incapable of certain degrees of reason.
 188                         </p><p>
 189                         Take the example of top-posting.  Everybody who read a top-posted email
 190                         knows that you have to scroll down, possibly weeding through tons of
 191                         pages to find out what the heck the author of the last reply was replying
 192                         to.
 193                         </p><p>
 194                         Never mind that it would take the author of the reply just a couple of
 195                         seconds to remove all the irrelevant stuff -- as she already knows what
 196                         is the relevant part, saving minutes, in case of mailing lists hours,
 197                         easily, to the readers who otherwise would have to discern what is
 198                         irrelevant and what is relevant first.
 199                         </p><p>
 200                         It is a horrible time waste.  But of course not for the top-poster.
 201                         </p><p>
 202                         The problem is that I frequently run into such people, and when I write
 203                         them a polite mail, explaining to them that it is impolite to top-post,
 204                         and why, the answers I get sometimes make me check if the sky is still up
 205                         and the earth down.  Yesterday was an example of such a dubitable
 206                         pleasure.
 207                         </p><p>
 208                         Most funny are the ridiculous attempts by those persons at explaining why
 209                         top-posting is <i>so</i> much superior to anything else.
 210                         </p><p>
 211                         Which is good, because if they were not that funny, they would be pretty sad.
 212                         </p>
 213                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Dragon</h6>
 214                         <a name=1232607201>
 215                         <h2>Sverre's hat</h2>
 216
 217                         <p>
 218                         </p><p>
 219                         The fun part about a blog is that you can talk about less technical stuff.
 220                         For example, Sverre's hat.
 221                         </p><p>
 222                         Let me start a bit earlier, so that you get the context.
 223                         </p><p>
 224                         Last year, at the <a href=http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitTogether>GitTogether</a>,
 225                         we had an <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference>unconference style
 226                         conference</a>, which basically meant that it was our job to decide what
 227                         we want to talk about.
 228                         </p><p>
 229                         It turned out to be pretty hard, because there was so much we wanted to
 230                         discuss, and because we wanted to get to know each other, and we wanted to
 231                         do some hacking.
 232                         </p><p>
 233                         So to help us decide what subjects, and in which order we wanted to have
 234                         scheduled, Shawn opened a series on <a href=http://moderator.appspot.com/>
 235                         Google Moderator</a>, a nifty, yet simple application which allows a group
 236                         to agree quickly on an agenda.
 237                         </p><p>
 238                         It worked quite well; However, that little saboteur displayed his sense of
 239                         humor so overtly that some entertaining Gitter put the question "Should Sverre
 240                         wear a hat?" on the agenda.
 241                         </p><p>
 242                         Sure enough, the subject got voted up, and eventually, we got Sverre a hat:
 243                         </p><p>
 244                         <center><img src=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=832be85c785c80202f17b87db7f063ae57ec2cac;f=sverre-hat.jpg></center>
 245                         </p><p>
 246                         By the way, another thing I like about this blog engine is that there are no
 247                         comments...  Nothing is more annoying than leaving a comment on a blog,
 248                         forgetting about it for a few months, and then finding somebody answered
 249                         ages ago.
 250                         </p><p>
 251                         Update: Sverre says it was dsymonds idea.
 252                         </p>
 253                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Dragon</h6>
 254                         <a name=1232604722>
 255                         <h2>Let there be images!</h2>
 256
 257                         <p>
 258                         </p><p>
 259                         One of the most important features of blogs is the ability to insert images.
 260                         So what would this blog be, if it could not present something that says
 261                         more than a thousand words?
 262                         </p><p>
 263                         So here it goes, my first picture in this blog, taken from my Google Tech
 264                         Talk in Mountain View:
 265                         </p><p>
 266                         <center><img src=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=832be85c785c80202f17b87db7f063ae57ec2cac;f=all-your-rebase.png></center>
 267                         </p><p>
 268                         Now this blog starts to look like a real blog...
 269                         </p>
 270                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Rabbit</h6>
 271                         <a name=1232599693>
 272                         <h2>My blog has style</h2>
 273
 274                         <p>
 275                         </p><p>
 276                         It is official.  The blog has a style sheet now.
 277                         </p><p>
 278                         The major problem was how to design the system such that it would work
 279                         both locally and on <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a> via gitweb.
 280                         </p><p>
 281                         Basically, I realized that I'd need a dry run mode anyway, to prevent
 282                         all my failed attemp.. oops, I meant, to prevent an accidental push
 283                         when I am at an, ahem, intermediate state of the 'blog' branch.
 284                         </p><p>
 285                         Therefore, I could write a different file locally, which I can load
 286                         into my venerable Firefox.
 287                         </p><p>
 288                         The next plans with my new toy are to enable an easy way to support
 289                         showing images, and then maybe a table of contents.  External links
 290                         would be cool (<a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a> does not count, it is special-cased), too.
 291                         </p><p>
 292                         And later maybe a cut-off, with automatic generation of links to older
 293                         posts.  Hmm, for those, I'll have to change the URL to include the
 294                         current commit name, so that the images will be found, too...
 295                         </p><p>
 296                         Which in turn means that I'll have to parse the source for new
 297                         images first, so that they can be in the commit that index.html
 298                         will link to, <u>before</u> it gets committed.  Oh well, that cannot be
 299                         helped! &#x263a;
 300                         </p>
 301                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Tiger</h6>
 302                         <a name=1232589695>
 303                         <h2>My new blog system... bloGit</h2>
 304
 305                         <p>
 306                         </p><p>
 307                         Nowadays, you got to have your blog.  Or better: your blogs.  Even Junio
 308                         blogs about Git.
 309                         </p><p>
 310                         So I felt a little left behind, having no blog to show off.  But then
 311                         I read about this fantastic new website on the mailing list, called
 312                         <i>git planet</i> which was supposed to be a place where you could have your
 313                         Git located blog.
 314                         </p><p>
 315                         Except that you could not have your blog <u>there</u>.  Instead, it is just an
 316                         aggregator site.
 317                         </p><p>
 318                         I was disappointed.
 319                         </p><p>
 320                         But then, I had this (in my humble opinion very cute) idea that I already used to "publish"
 321                         my slides from the talk "Contributing with Git (AKA All your rebase are
 322                         belong to us)": back then, I just created a new branch, committed the
 323                         file, and uploaded the result to <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a>, to be downloaded via Gitweb.
 324                         </p><p>
 325                         So I asked Pasky via IRC, if he would have any objections if I abused
 326                         <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a> as a blog server.  He understood at once, and found it "sounds
 327                         like a pretty cool idea".
 328                         </p><p>
 329                         Of course, just writing plain HTML and committing that is <i>too easy</i>,
 330                         therefore I decided to write a shell script that would turn some sort
 331                         of simple text file into proper HTML, commit it, and upload the result.
 332                         </p><p>
 333                         Well, about two hours later, I finished the first version of the script
 334                         turning plain text with minimal markup into an HTML page, and it obviously
 335                         worked -- otherwise nobody would be able to read this &#x263a;
 336                         </p>
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