Subject: Re: GSoC 2010: "Integrated Web Client for git" proposal

From: Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2010 02:46:16 +0200

Dnia czwartek 15. kwietnia 2010 06:30, Christian Couder napisał:
> Hi!
> 
> Pavan Kumar Sunkara sent an email on the git mailing list a few days ago about 
> his GSoC proposal:
> 
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/144658/

I would really prefer if Pavan just *wrote* the text of his "Integrated
Web Client for git" proposal for GSoC 2010 in email, instead of providing
link to it; link that requires signing-in.

  This proposal aims at creating a multi-purpose HTML based GUI client
  for git. This client intends in reducing the work needed to be done
  by a developer while working on a git repository. This is not another
  gitweb or gitorious but it also contains their functionalities as
  submodules.
 
  The project goal is to try and implement a integrated multi-purpose
  HTML based GUI client for git. It contains two parts which are
  crucial while working on a git repository, Read and Write.

    * Read means browse through the code and repository
    * Write means working on the code and repository

  Also, in the future others will be able to develop more functionalities
  for this client with the help of the framework like structure of this
  project.

It is not entirely sure what this "Web Client" is meant to do.  Is it
mainly meant as web interface to managing repositories (webmin for git),
something that GitHub, Gitorious, InDefero, Girocco all include?  This
could mean web interface to configuring gitosis / gitolite.  Or is it
meant as web analogue of git-gui: a committool, with ability to create
new commits, perhaps to edit files (and add them, delete them, move them
around), a bit like ikiwiki with Git backend, or other Git based wikis
and blogs?  Or is it something else?

> His proposal is based on the project he already started:
> 
> http://github.com/pkumar/gittor
> 
> There have been discussions about it on the GSoC web app and in some private 
> emails.
> 
> Possible GSoC mentors for this proposal don't want yet another web interface, 
> they want an existing interface to be improved on. As the obvious choice is to 
> improve gitweb, the current result from the discussions is that the proposal 
> should be changed so that the integrated web client is developed in Perl into 
> or alongside gitweb.

It could be a waste to duplicate functionality that is already present
in gitweb, at least for GSoC (having yet another web interface for git,
this time in Python, could be a good thing... if the web interface would
be developed further). 

As to integrating "Web Client for Git" with gitweb, there exists at least
a few possible ways to do this:

1. Keep "Web Client" separate for gitweb, and make use of gitweb 
   hooks/plugin system like $feature{'actions'}.  This might require
   adding new "hooks" to gitweb.

   The advantage is that "Web Client" can be written in any language,
   not necessary Perl.  The disadvantage that if it is written in Perl,
   some code might be duplicated.  It might be hard to write generic
   hooks - the "Web Client" could be not as well integrated with gitweb.

2. Write "Web Client" as a Perl module, like 'gitweb/cache.pm' in the
   http://repo.or.cz/w/git/jnareb-git.git/log/refs/heads/gitweb/cache-kernel-pu
   and 'require' this file as needed, guarded by global variable or
   %feature.

   The advantage is possible tighter integration.  I am not sure about
   being able to use code from gitweb in "Web Client".  It also requires
   using Perl, and might require using some contortions if the problem
   would be naturally split into multiple modules: there can be multiple
   modules, but it could be better to have them in one file.

3. Split Gitweb, add "Web Client" as one of modules.  Might be best
   from the purity point of view, but is practical only if it is
   integrated in gitweb.  That would require getting gitweb maintainer
   out of GSoC.   Also I am not sure how feaible this approach would be.

> 
> Pavan agreed to rewrite his proposal according to that and Petr and myself 
> volunteered to co-mentor him.
> 
> It was suggested that improving Gitalist 
> (http://wiki.catalystframework.org/wiki/gitalist) would be a better choice. 
> But this was rejected because Gitalist is too much different from gitweb so it 
> could not replace it for many people now using gitweb.

True, I don't think that e.g. git.kernel.org or repo.or.cz could install
Catalyst and Git::PurePerl and use Gitalist instead of gitweb...

P.S. If I remember correctly Gitalist was based out of last gitweb version
     before it got bundled with git.  I wonder if they caught up to the
     modern gitweb features (snapshots, Atom/RSS feeds, basic submodule
     support, handling images, incremental blame, grep and pickaxe search,
     etc.).

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland