Subject: Re: Switching from CVS to GIT

From: Andreas Ericsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 20:27:00 +0200

Benoit SIGOURE wrote:
> Context: GNU make seems to be willing to switch from CVS to ... 
> something else.
> 
> On Oct 14, 2007, at 6:57 PM, Paul Smith wrote:
> 
>> [...] the big thing no one else seems to have addressed much in
>> other discussions I've seen is portability.  It LOOKS like there are
>> native ports of GIT to MINGW, but I have no idea how complete and usable
>> they are.  If someone who has a Windows system could look into that it
>> would be a big help.
> 
> I think the best thing to do is to ask directly on the Git ML.
> 
> Someone already pointed out that he'd like to use Git on Windows but 
> doesn't want to install either Cygwin or MSYS.  Is this possible, or 
> will it be possible in the near future?

It is sort of possible. Without cygwin he'll be in the black for the few
features that are still implemented as shell-scripts, but perhaps he/she
will then be inclined to help us migrate those scripts to C builtins.

>  Is it possible to use one of 
> the various GUIs (git-gui, gitk, qgit) on Windows without requiring a 
> POSIXish shell etc.?
> 

qgit is possible to use natively, if one installs the qgit4 libraries for
windows, but it's more of a viewer than an action gui. git-gui and gitk
are usable if you have the windows TCL port. I haven't tried it, but
there are installers available, so testing it out (with all dependencies)
shouldn't take too long.

> When will the librarification of Git be finished?

When someone gets around to doing it ;-)

For a real answer, I'll have to defer to others. Everything works to my
satisfaction where I'm using it, so I'm not very inclined to fiddle with
it and risk breaking things.

>  (if Git is available 
> as a library, and if this library works on Windows, it will greatly help 
> truly native Windows ports).
> 

Yup. I believe the primary reason for libification is to easier support
both porting and fully-fledged gui's.

> Not that I like Windows in any way, right, but it's legitimate for 
> people working on Windows ports of various software to be willing to 
> have a truly native port of Git for Windows.
> 

Naturally. Amazingly few of those stuck with windows have so far
volunteered for helping out though, and since many of us on this list
don't even have a windows system for testing, it's kinda slow going :-/

I'd imagine getting in touch with Dscho to get a list of what's needed,
or reading the biweekly msys.git herald on this list, is the best way
of finding out the porting project's current priorities.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   [email-masked]
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231