This course will become read-only in the near future. Tell us at community.p2pu.org if that is a problem.
This course will outline common uses for Git. Topics include:
Local repositories Creating revisions Software communities such as Gitorious and Github Merging software commits
WEBCRAFT
Join the project P2PU: Let's Git Together on bettercodes.org. This will allow us to experiment with Git features in the context of a group collaborative project. Future assignments will involve the bettercodes P2PU repository.
Once you have joined the project, submit a comment on this task list. Describe your initial impression of the bettercodes.org community interface.
This task is a bit misleading — in neither of the 11 tasks so far is it required to have an account on any Git hosting service at all, let alone a specific one.
I’m moving this task to the last place as it’s not needed so far.
Signed up and joined! Site was extremely slow logging in, but has otherwise been pretty quick.
I'm trying to sign in to bettercodes but getting errors on Activation and the site is extremely slow.
Hi I have just added myself to the p2pu git project on bettercodes. I also found that the sign in web page timed out on me the first time I tried to log in.
Please could my status be changed to Developer also.
Thanks
Tony
I'm all signed up, time for me to configure git. I don't see much in the way of what to do once I sign up overat bettercodes.
Signed up ok. The site was a little sluggish at times and had to start a new tab as it timed out.
The bettercodes signup process is OK, though somewhat slow and unresponsive. It's difficult to see what I have done so far as any kind of flow, though - it's involved multiple browser windows, and it's difficult to see where I am going when I've just had to sign up for two entirely separate web applications before I can start doing class work.
I trust this won't deter less clueful newbies. Ideally there should be an obvious sequence of interactions in a single window.
I started the process of joining BC, but stopped when I saw gender was a required field on the registration form. I cannot see any reason why a site for project hosting would collect data on gender! I've sent an email to BC and will reconsider registering when I hear back. Sigh...
Wow, I didn't realize that. I will send a letter of inquiry as well so that we can form a critical mass.
Do you have any ideas for another good, open source based (e.g. AGPL codebase), Git hosting site?
That sounds great.
This is new for me, but learning to use GitHub is a goal of mine; however, not sure if it would be appropriate for what you're outlining here.
When I was looking for info about Bettercodes I found this chart. Maybe someone with more experience could have a look.
Bettercodes looked interesting b/c it's built on WordPress/BuddyPress - maybe they'll come through.
I would like to primarily consider the platforms that run on all free software. I was considering using Gitorious for the class repository. Would Gitorious be a better choice?
I also like the social aspects of BetterCodes. I hope that the developers can meet the request for gender neutrality/anonimity.
Having never used Git or a repository I have no idea what is needed. Someone via the p2pu twitter account suggested GitHub. Is that a viable option?
I agree the buddypress elements on BetterCodes would be nice to try, but there are social options here (comments & irc) and it would help keep the group in one place. I'd like to give BC a chance to respond, but I am axious to move forward on this.
I find the whole issue misleading. If we want to learn git we don't need a social website for that. We only need a social website for later stages in which we learn merging, rebasing and branching. I would suggest do the basics first and once we feel comfortable with it, we can move on to one of the many social repositories such as bitbucket, github, bettercode etc. Or, somebody offers a server with gitorius, as this is all we would need.
Andrej
There may well be differences of opinion about the best demagogy for presenting git, and there are certainly different opinions on whether the open source world should embrace services that are proprietary and only available on a commercial basis.
I am thinking on my feet here and not presenting a reasoned course of study, but I tend to agree with you that it would be most helpful to students to have them start by creating a local repository (I am hoping there is a Windows equivalent of the Tortoise tool that works so well with Subversion, but sadly cannot report first-hand knowledge of such a beast). They should work their files up to a given point, and only after they have learned to maintain local histories and how to branch and merge should they approach the complexity of interacting with networked remote repositories.
Before any of that, of course (no pun intended) the distributed version control system (DVCS) philosophy should be presented, preferably in practical terms: such a body has just learned of a particular package that does almsot what (s)he wants. Downloading and modifying it for her/his own purposes, (s)he realizes that others might benefit from the same modifications. Then, for either altruistic or commercial reasons (and hopefully without getting into any kind of discussion about the relative desirability of alternative economic models) performs further engineering to integrate the new feature to make it more generally useful. Without scenarios that make sense the the students they won't be motivated to learn how to use git.
As far as git goes, I have a bit of experience with local uses of git and I have a GitHub account, but I expect to be feeling my way along with everyone else when it comes to remote repositories (I was initially quite wrong about the impact of DVCS hubs on open source). But I have a lot of experience with computers and I earn part of my living by teaching. I am happy to help move the class forward by contributing what I can, though my contributions will of necessity be sporadic. I am even happier to learn from my fellow students.
Having read the ToS and PP of both GitHub, Gitorious and SF.net, I much prefer Gitorious.
Gitorious might not have all the bells and whistles of GitHub, but its ToS and PP are by far kinder, as well as its code being under AGPL.
