Moving to Git

[takkaria]

Hello all,

Angband is moving to Git. It's been a goal to move to a distributed VCS for some time, but the consensus of active developers is on Git, so that's what we're moving to.

Elly has started some good refactoring/rewriting + unit testing work on the init file parser, so now is the time to move (so that doesn't have to be committed back into SVN as a single patch and we lose valuable history). I've not got the time/energy to set up Trac+git yet, but I will soon. In the meantime, though, the git home of Angband is github:

http://github.com/takkaria/angband

I'll be keeping svn and github in sync for a while, but soon svn will be phased out-- maybe in a month or so (when I get trac+git sorted out).

[d_m]

Awesome!

So just to be clear: as of this moment, anyone who wants to work on Angband can check out the Git repo and ignore SVN?

[Nick]

Nice. With luck we'll be able to do something smart with keeping V and AngbandBase synchronised; all we need is (a) at least one person with a clue and (b) something to actually happen with AngbandBase.

[takkaria]

Awesome!

So just to be clear: as of this moment, anyone who wants to work on Angband can check out the Git repo and ignore SVN?

That's right.

[Timo Pietilä]

Hello all,

Angband is moving to Git.

For non-coder that doesn't say anything. What is "Git"? How is it any better than old system? How can I get a source/binaries from it?

[Derakon]

From your perspective, you can think of Git as being like having two SVN repositories: one master copy on the remote server, and one local copy on your computer. You can check in changes on your computer without affecting the master, so you can make minor checkins without worrying about breaking things for everyone else. When all of your changes are ready, you can push them to the master.

[fizzix]

So does this mean as soon as we're almost done with changes we get moved to a different .c file?

(this only makes sense to me...here's why: [U] Draebor, the Imp (Violet 'u')
An intensely irritating *git* of a monster...)

[takkaria]

For non-coder that doesn't say anything. What is "Git"? How is it any better than old system? How can I get a source/binaries from it?

For non-coders it's not that interesting. Basically, the software you use to get the latest development version of the game is called 'git' instead of 'svn', and to get a copy you use 'git clone' rather than 'svn checkout'. For developers, it gives a whole load more flexibility (google 'why use git' to find out more if you're really interested).

[Timo Pietilä]

For non-coders it's not that interesting. Basically, the software you use to get the latest development version of the game is called 'git' instead of 'svn', and to get a copy you use 'git clone' rather than 'svn checkout'. For developers, it gives a whole load more flexibility (google 'why use git' to find out more if you're really interested).

There seem to be "download source" -button in angband git webpage which apparently gives me the current state of the sources. The really latest source. No need to do "git clone", or have any extra programs installed which is better than old svn. Just bookmark the page and get new source whenever you want.

This is minor but it names the file I get a bit weirdly: takkaria-angband-f37b1f0.zip

If you could change that to something more useful, maybe time/date and version it would be nice.

Anyway, from Derakon explanation I can see how this is improvement, more flexibility in tweaking before releasing to wider community.

[SaThaRiel]

Great news - i thought about some time to ask if someone would mind switching to git
Archlinux User Repository Package made using git. The svn package is marked as out-of-date. Seems that just 2 ppl (well, one besides me) using the dev version but there maybe more

[krugar]

I don't see where the excitement is all about. Neither exactly how was Angband suffering from its previous choice for SVN.

Assuming this is not another one of "moving to git because its the new fad", is there any previous discussion you folks can point me at that explains why you are forcing me to install and learn about an entirely different revision control system? One that... i must add... I feel not inclined at all to use, neither particularly suitable for small projects like Angband?

[takkaria]

There seem to be "download source" -button in angband git webpage which apparently gives me the current state of the sources. The really latest source. No need to do "git clone", or have any extra programs installed which is better than old svn. Just bookmark the page and get new source whenever you want.

This is minor but it names the file I get a bit weirdly: takkaria-angband-f37b1f0.zip

If you could change that to something more useful, maybe time/date and version it would be nice.

Anyway, from Derakon explanation I can see how this is improvement, more flexibility in tweaking before releasing to wider community.

I can't rename the files, that's a GitHub thing (revision IDs in Git are long hexadecimal strings, not simple numbers). When I figure out how to move stuff back to Trac and set it up on rephial.org, I can set the autobuilder to package the source as well as the windows version if you like.

[takkaria]

I don't see where the excitement is all about. Neither exactly how was Angband suffering from its previous choice for SVN.

Assuming this is not another one of "moving to git because its the new fad", is there any previous discussion you folks can point me at that explains why you are forcing me to install and learn about an entirely different revision control system? One that... i must add... I feel not inclined at all to use, neither particularly suitable for small projects like Angband?

The developers have been wanting to move to a distributed VCS for some time, for all of its benefits-- namely, having revision control offline as well as online and fast and easy branching, which is especially useful when people want to make large changes. Now just happens to be a convenient time to move. I'm sorry that it causes you inconvenience.

[Timo Pietilä]

I can set the autobuilder to package the source as well as the windows version if you like.

Getting source with the binaries would be great. I bet I'm not the only one that would like to see that.

[Derakon]

I don't see where the excitement is all about. Neither exactly how was Angband suffering from its previous choice for SVN.

Assuming this is not another one of "moving to git because its the new fad", is there any previous discussion you folks can point me at that explains why you are forcing me to install and learn about an entirely different revision control system? One that... i must add... I feel not inclined at all to use, neither particularly suitable for small projects like Angband?

Git is just as suited to small projects as SVN is. You don't have to have a master repository anywhere if you don't want to; you can trivially set up a local repository and get all the normal benefits of source control.

Git also isn't a new fad; it's been available now for five years -- enough time for many software developers to evaluate it and decide if it works better for them than SVN or not. The general consensus is that it does. SVN isn't broken, but Git can do things that it can't -- or at least, that it can't do easily. So our main developers are more efficient on Git, not to mention happier.

If you are a developer, it's worth your time to learn to use a distributed version control system like Git; odds are you'll eventually have to use one anyway. If you aren't a developer, then access to the unstable development versions is contingent on your ability to learn to use the requisite tools, whatever they happen to be -- or on someone who has the relevant skills being willing to make regular builds.