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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=#1232778113>24 Jan 2009 Thoughts about <i>interactive rebase</i></a>
  16                         <li><a href=#1232745071>23 Jan 2009 Git Logos</a>
  17                         <li><a href=#1232742582>23 Jan 2009 How to deal with files that are not source code when merging</a>
  18                         <li><a href=#1232626236>22 Jan 2009 The UGFWIINI contest</a>
  19                         <li><a href=#1232611542>22 Jan 2009 Top-posting</a>
  20                         <li><a href=#1232607201>22 Jan 2009 Sverre's hat</a>
  21                         <li><a href=#1232604722>22 Jan 2009 Let there be images!</a>
  22                         <li><a href=#1232599693>22 Jan 2009 My blog has style</a>
  23                         <li><a href=#1232589695>22 Jan 2009 My new blog system... bloGit</a>
  24                         </ul></p>
  25                         </td></tr></table>
  26                         <br>
  27                         <div style="text-align:right;">
  28                         <a href="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=blog;f=blog.rss"
  29                            title="Subscribe to my RSS feed"
  30                            class="rss" rel="nofollow"
  31                            style="background-color:orange;text-decoration:none;color:white;font-family:sans-serif;">RSS</a>
  32                         </div>
  33                         <br>
  34                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  35                         <tr><th>Links:</th></tr>
  36                         <tr><td>
  37                         <ul>
  38                         <li> <a href=http://git-scm.com/>Git's homepage</a>
  39                         <li> <a href=http://gitster.livejournal.com/>Junio's blog</a>
  40                         <li> <a href=http://www.spearce.org/>Shawn's blog</a> seems to be sitting
  41                               idle ever since he started working for Google...
  42                         <li> <a href=http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/>Linus' blog</a> does not
  43                               talk much about Git...
  44                         <li> Scott Chacon's <a href=http://whygitisbetterthanx.com/>Why Git is better
  45                              than X</a> site
  46                         <li> <a href=http://vilain.net/>The blog of mugwump</a>
  47                         <li> <a href=http://blogs.gnome.org/newren/>Elijah Newren</a> chose the
  48                               same path as Cogito, offering an alternative porcelain (an approach
  49                               that is doomed in my opinion)
  50                         <li> <a href=http://msysgit.googlecode.com/>The msysGit project</a>, a (mostly)
  51                               failed experiment to lure the many Windows developers out there to
  52                               contribute to Open Source for a change.
  53                         </ul>
  54                         </td></tr></table>
  55                         <br>
  56                         <table width=400px bgcolor=#e0e0e0 border=1>
  57                         <tr><th>Google Ads:</th></tr>
  58                         <tr><td align=center>
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  62                         google_ad_slot = "6468207338";
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  68                         src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
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  70                         </td></tr></table>
  71                         </div>
  72                         <h6>Saturday, 24th of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Dragon</h6>
  73                         <a name=1232778113>
  74                         <h2>Thoughts about <i>interactive rebase</i></h2>
  75
  76                         <p>
  77                         </p><p>
  78                         Somebody mentioned that my <i>my-next</i> branch is a mess, as it mixes all
  79                         kinds of topics.
  80                         </p><p>
  81                         That is undeniably true, however, there is a good reason that I do not
  82                         have a lot of topic branches: I work on more than just one computer.
  83                         </p><p>
  84                         To make sure that I do not lose a commit by mistake, I always <i>rebase -i</i>
  85                         the <i>my-next</i> branch of the computer I happen to work on on top of the
  86                         <i>my-next</i> branch I fetch from <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a>.
  87                         </p><p>
  88                         To rebase a lot of topic branches at the same time seems a bit complicated.
  89                         But that is actually what the <i>-p</i> option (preserve merges) is all about.
  90                         </p><p>
  91                         The only problem is that the code for <i>rebase -i -p</i> has been messed up
  92                         recently, quite successfully, I might add.
  93                         </p><p>
  94                         Worse, some people are pushing for a completely and total unintuitive syntax.
  95                         </p><p>
  96                         So maybe I will start to work on <i>-p</i> again, for my own use (I should learn
  97                         to heed the principle more: work on things I can use myself).
  98                         </p><p>
  99                         My current idea is to implement a "goto" statement that will jump to another
 100                         commit.  To make it easily usable, I will add the semantics that "goto" will
 101                         always try to go to the <u>rewritten</u> version of the given commit; if the user
 102                         wanted to have the original commit, she has to paste the unabbreviated commit
 103                         name.
 104                         </p><p>
 105                         The more I think about it, the more I actually like this idea &#x263a;
 106                         </p><p>
 107                         Of course, working on this little project means that I will have to cope with
 108                         that ugly code again.  *urgh*
 109                         </p>
 110                         <h6>Friday, 23rd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Pig</h6>
 111                         <a name=1232745071>
 112                         <h2>Git Logos</h2>
 113
 114                         <p>
 115                         </p><p>
 116                         The other day, when I did not exactly have too much time on my hands, but
 117                         definitely too much motivation, I played around creating several logos.
 118                         </p><p>
 119                         An ambigram (if you turn it 180 degrees around the appropriate axis, it looks
 120                         exactly the same as unrotated):
 121                         </p><p>
 122                         <center>
 123                                 <table border=0>
 124                                         <tr>
 125                                                 <td align=center>
 126                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 127                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-ambigram.svg" width=317 />
 128                                                 </td>
 129                                         </tr>
 130                                         <tr>
 131                                                 <td align=center>
 132                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-ambigram.svg>git-ambigram.svg</a>
 133                                                 </td>
 134                                         </tr>
 135                                 </table>
 136                         </center>
 137                         </p><p>
 138                         A play on gitk:
 139                         </p><p>
 140                         <center>
 141                                 <table border=0>
 142                                         <tr>
 143                                                 <td align=center>
 144                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 145                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-gitk-logo.svg" width=325 />
 146                                                 </td>
 147                                         </tr>
 148                                         <tr>
 149                                                 <td align=center>
 150                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-gitk-logo.svg>git-gitk-logo.svg</a>
 151                                                 </td>
 152                                         </tr>
 153                                 </table>
 154                         </center>
 155                         </p><p>
 156                         A play on the test you have to go through before getting new glasses:
 157                         </p><p>
 158                         <center>
 159                                 <table border=0>
 160                                         <tr>
 161                                                 <td align=center>
 162                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 163                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-visual-test.svg" width=325 />
 164                                                 </td>
 165                                         </tr>
 166                                         <tr>
 167                                                 <td align=center>
 168                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=git-visual-test.svg>git-visual-test.svg</a>
 169                                                 </td>
 170                                         </tr>
 171                                 </table>
 172                         </center>
 173                         </p><p>
 174                         This is Henrik Nyh's logo (converted to .svg by yours truly):
 175                         </p><p>
 176                         <center>
 177                                 <table border=0>
 178                                         <tr>
 179                                                 <td align=center>
 180                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 181                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=gitlogo.svg" width=165 />
 182                                                 </td>
 183                                         </tr>
 184                                         <tr>
 185                                                 <td align=center>
 186                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=gitlogo.svg>gitlogo.svg</a>
 187                                                 </td>
 188                                         </tr>
 189                                 </table>
 190                         </center>
 191                         </p><p>
 192                         And of course, the original logo...
 193                         </p><p>
 194                         <center>
 195                                 <table border=0>
 196                                         <tr>
 197                                                 <td align=center>
 198                                                         <embed type="image/svg+xml"
 199                                                                 src="dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=original-git-logo.svg" width=165 />
 200                                                 </td>
 201                                         </tr>
 202                                         <tr>
 203                                                 <td align=center>
 204                                                         <a href=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=aaa9edafbe6ca5349ad7b36848fb294e5f4fc529;f=original-git-logo.svg>original-git-logo.svg</a>
 205                                                 </td>
 206                                         </tr>
 207                                 </table>
 208                         </center>
 209                         </p><p>
 210                         Maybe some of you have fun with them...
 211                         </p>
 212                         <h6>Friday, 23rd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Pig</h6>
 213                         <a name=1232742582>
 214                         <h2>How to deal with files that are not source code when merging</h2>
 215
 216                         <p>
 217                         </p><p>
 218                         Last week, one of the mentors of last year's <a href=http://code.google.com/soc>
 219                         Summer of Code</a> mentioned the idea that merge strategies are in dear need
 220                         for file types other than source code.
 221                         </p><p>
 222                         I think this idea is awesome, even if I cannot bring myself to believe that
 223                         any of the file types would make a good Summer of Code project: either they
 224                         are too complicated (think raster images such as .png or even .jpg), or they
 225                         are too straight-forward (think LaTeX, where all that is needed is a good
 226                         graphical user interface to inspect the three versions: <i>ours</i>, <i>baseline</i>
 227                         and <i>theirs</i>).
 228                         </p><p>
 229                         The LaTeX idea would be a good project for me to mentor, though: I have a
 230                         pretty clear idea how it should be done; I just lack the time (and motivation)
 231                         to do it myself.
 232                         </p><p>
 233                         As for OpenOffice text documents, vector graphics (such as .svg), or more
 234                         specific data such as spreadsheets, I think that all of these are really
 235                         difficult: the problem is not so much the implementation (i.e. the programming
 236                         part of it), but the design.
 237                         </p><p>
 238                         This design should involve much more than a Summer of Code project is about:
 239                         you would need to survey users' expectations, and at least the mentor -- if
 240                         not the student -- would need to be an expert in usability questions, which
 241                         is rather unlikely in the realm of Open Source.
 242                         </p><p>
 243                         Maybe this is the missing part in Open Source: we have many brilliant
 244                         programmers, but next to nobody with a good idea how to design intuitive
 245                         user interfaces.
 246                         </p><p>
 247                         That might be related to the fact that brilliant software engineers, as they
 248                         can be found in Open Source, are not exactly known for their social skills,
 249                         a human trait that seems to be a very important prerequisite for designing
 250                         intuitive user interfaces.
 251                         </p><p>
 252                         Well, I have <a href=http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/SoC2009Ideas#head-6188833471f79f277e162ef9fbe1592aa10b5f6c>
 253                         added</a> the proposal to Git's Summer of Code idea page on the Git Wiki; We will
 254                         see what comes out of it.
 255                         </p>
 256                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Goat</h6>
 257                         <a name=1232626236>
 258                         <h2>The UGFWIINI contest</h2>
 259
 260                         <p>
 261                         </p><p>
 262                         Just in case somebody finds this blog, here is a challenge.  Inspired by my
 263                         own little hack (this blog), I announce the "Using Git For What It Is Not
 264                         Intended" contest.
 265                         </p><p>
 266                         And it is especially cool, since the acronym sounds cool!  You might miss
 267                         this fact if you do no know that I pronounce the "F" like an "A" so that
 268                         it sounds cool.
 269                         </p><p>
 270                         This will be a running contest; whenever I have 10 valid applications, I
 271                         will announce a winner on the Git mailing list.
 272                         </p><p>
 273                         So, what accounts for a valid application?
 274                         </p><p>
 275                         <ul>
 276                         <li> You must use a Git program (the term is used loosely here, GitWeb is
 277                              considered a Git program, for example).
 278                         <li> The program must be intended for something completely different than
 279                              what you are using it for.  E.g. GitWeb -- which was intended to let
 280                              you browse through the history using your web browser -- is used
 281                              to serve a blog to the wide world.
 282                         <li> You must be able to prove that you actually used the Git program to
 283                              the purpose you claim, preferably in a live demonstration like this
 284                              one.
 285                         <li> Nobody and nothing must be harmed in the process (except your
 286                              laughing muscle, that's okay).
 287                         </ul>
 288                         </p><p>
 289                         So, how does such an abuse look like?
 290                         </p><p>
 291                         <ul>
 292                         <li> ... like this blog.
 293                         <li> Managing your mail (in maildir format) in a Git repository.
 294                         <li> Finding duplicate files by
 295                         <table
 296                                                         border=1 bgcolor=black>
 297                                                 <tr><td bgcolor=lightblue colspan=3>
 298                                                         &nbsp;
 299                                                 </td></tr>
 300                                                 <tr><td>
 301                                                         <table cellspacing=5 border=0
 302                                                                  style="color:white;">
 303                                                         <tr><td>
 304                                         <pre>
 305 $ git init
 306 $ git add .
 307 $ git ls-files --stage | sort -k2 | uniq -d -s7 -w40
 308                 </pre>
 309                                                         </td></tr>
 310                                                         </table>
 311                                                 </td></tr>
 312                                                 </table>
 313                         <li> Abusing the Git alias mechanism to call scripts defined directly in
 314                              the config.
 315                         </ul>
 316                         </p><p>
 317                         I am really looking forward to all of your submissions... *chuckles*
 318                         </p><p>
 319                         </p>
 320                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Snake</h6>
 321                         <a name=1232611542>
 322                         <h2>Top-posting</h2>
 323
 324                         <p>
 325                         </p><p>
 326                         Okay, last post for a while.  But this is something that is nagging me
 327                         tremendously.  I should probably just let go, but in my deepest inner self,
 328                         really close to my heart, I refuse to believe that any human beings could
 329                         be incapable of certain degrees of reason.
 330                         </p><p>
 331                         Take the example of top-posting.  Everybody who read a top-posted email
 332                         knows that you have to scroll down, possibly weeding through tons of
 333                         pages to find out what the heck the author of the last reply was replying
 334                         to.
 335                         </p><p>
 336                         Never mind that it would take the author of the reply just a couple of
 337                         seconds to remove all the irrelevant stuff -- as she already knows what
 338                         is the relevant part, saving minutes, in case of mailing lists hours,
 339                         easily, to the readers who otherwise would have to discern what is
 340                         irrelevant and what is relevant first.
 341                         </p><p>
 342                         It is a horrible time waste.  But of course not for the top-poster.
 343                         </p><p>
 344                         The problem is that I frequently run into such people, and when I write
 345                         them a polite mail, explaining to them that it is impolite to top-post,
 346                         and why, the answers I get sometimes make me check if the sky is still up
 347                         and the earth down.  Yesterday was an example of such a dubitable
 348                         pleasure.
 349                         </p><p>
 350                         Most funny are the ridiculous attempts by those persons at explaining why
 351                         top-posting is <i>so</i> much superior to anything else.
 352                         </p><p>
 353                         Which is good, because if they were not that funny, they would be pretty sad.
 354                         </p>
 355                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Dragon</h6>
 356                         <a name=1232607201>
 357                         <h2>Sverre's hat</h2>
 358
 359                         <p>
 360                         </p><p>
 361                         The fun part about a blog is that you can talk about less technical stuff.
 362                         For example, Sverre's hat.
 363                         </p><p>
 364                         Let me start a bit earlier, so that you get the context.
 365                         </p><p>
 366                         Last year, at the <a href=http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitTogether>GitTogether</a>,
 367                         we had an <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference>unconference style
 368                         conference</a>, which basically meant that it was our job to decide what
 369                         we want to talk about.
 370                         </p><p>
 371                         It turned out to be pretty hard, because there was so much we wanted to
 372                         discuss, and because we wanted to get to know each other, and we wanted to
 373                         do some hacking.
 374                         </p><p>
 375                         So to help us decide what subjects, and in which order we wanted to have
 376                         scheduled, Shawn opened a series on <a href=http://moderator.appspot.com/>
 377                         Google Moderator</a>, a nifty, yet simple application which allows a group
 378                         to agree quickly on an agenda.
 379                         </p><p>
 380                         It worked quite well; However, that little saboteur displayed his sense of
 381                         humor so overtly that some entertaining Gitter put the question "Should Sverre
 382                         wear a hat?" on the agenda.
 383                         </p><p>
 384                         Sure enough, the subject got voted up, and eventually, we got Sverre a hat:
 385                         </p><p>
 386                         <center><img src=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=30319f7436828cd15db8a531a0057351d8e361c0;f=sverre-hat.jpg sverre-hat.jpg></center>
 387                         </p><p>
 388                         By the way, another thing I like about this blog engine is that there are no
 389                         comments...  Nothing is more annoying than leaving a comment on a blog,
 390                         forgetting about it for a few months, and then finding somebody answered
 391                         ages ago.
 392                         </p><p>
 393                         Update: Sverre says it was dsymonds idea.
 394                         </p>
 395                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Dragon</h6>
 396                         <a name=1232604722>
 397                         <h2>Let there be images!</h2>
 398
 399                         <p>
 400                         </p><p>
 401                         One of the most important features of blogs is the ability to insert images.
 402                         So what would this blog be, if it could not present something that says
 403                         more than a thousand words?
 404                         </p><p>
 405                         So here it goes, my first picture in this blog, taken from my Google Tech
 406                         Talk in Mountain View:
 407                         </p><p>
 408                         <center><img src=dscho.git?a=blob_plain;hb=85b89d1cd73acd65ca4381be901d50287dde8170;f=all-your-rebase.png width=500px></center>
 409                         </p><p>
 410                         Now this blog starts to look like a real blog...
 411                         </p>
 412                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Rabbit</h6>
 413                         <a name=1232599693>
 414                         <h2>My blog has style</h2>
 415
 416                         <p>
 417                         </p><p>
 418                         It is official.  The blog has a style sheet now.
 419                         </p><p>
 420                         The major problem was how to design the system such that it would work
 421                         both locally and on <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a> via gitweb.
 422                         </p><p>
 423                         Basically, I realized that I'd need a dry run mode anyway, to prevent
 424                         all my failed attemp.. oops, I meant, to prevent an accidental push
 425                         when I am at an, ahem, intermediate state of the 'blog' branch.
 426                         </p><p>
 427                         Therefore, I could write a different file locally, which I can load
 428                         into my venerable Firefox.
 429                         </p><p>
 430                         The next plans with my new toy are to enable an easy way to support
 431                         showing images, and then maybe a table of contents.  External links
 432                         would be cool (<a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a> does not count, it is special-cased), too.
 433                         </p><p>
 434                         And later maybe a cut-off, with automatic generation of links to older
 435                         posts.  Hmm, for those, I'll have to change the URL to include the
 436                         current commit name, so that the images will be found, too...
 437                         </p><p>
 438                         Which in turn means that I'll have to parse the source for new
 439                         images first, so that they can be in the commit that index.html
 440                         will link to, <u>before</u> it gets committed.  Oh well, that cannot be
 441                         helped! &#x263a;
 442                         </p>
 443                         <h6>Thursday, 22nd of January, Anno Domini MMIX, at the hour of the Tiger</h6>
 444                         <a name=1232589695>
 445                         <h2>My new blog system... bloGit</h2>
 446
 447                         <p>
 448                         </p><p>
 449                         Nowadays, you got to have your blog.  Or better: your blogs.  Even Junio
 450                         blogs about Git.
 451                         </p><p>
 452                         So I felt a little left behind, having no blog to show off.  But then
 453                         I read about this fantastic new website on the mailing list, called
 454                         <i>git planet</i> which was supposed to be a place where you could have your
 455                         Git located blog.
 456                         </p><p>
 457                         Except that you could not have your blog <u>there</u>.  Instead, it is just an
 458                         aggregator site.
 459                         </p><p>
 460                         I was disappointed.
 461                         </p><p>
 462                         But then, I had this (in my humble opinion very cute) idea that I already used to "publish"
 463                         my slides from the talk "Contributing with Git (AKA All your rebase are
 464                         belong to us)": back then, I just created a new branch, committed the
 465                         file, and uploaded the result to <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a>, to be downloaded via Gitweb.
 466                         </p><p>
 467                         So I asked Pasky via IRC, if he would have any objections if I abused
 468                         <a href=http://repo.or.cz>repo.or.cz</a> as a blog server.  He understood at once, and found it "sounds
 469                         like a pretty cool idea".
 470                         </p><p>
 471                         Of course, just writing plain HTML and committing that is <i>too easy</i>,
 472                         therefore I decided to write a shell script that would turn some sort
 473                         of simple text file into proper HTML, commit it, and upload the result.
 474                         </p><p>
 475                         Well, about two hours later, I finished the first version of the script
 476                         turning plain text with minimal markup into an HTML page, and it obviously
 477                         worked -- otherwise nobody would be able to read this &#x263a;
 478                         </p>
 479                 </div>
 480         </body>
 481 </html>