[RFC] A huge problem with Github diff

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:27:46 +0400
Denis Shelomovskij <verylonglogin.reg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Current Github diff is very primitive and is almost like unified diff 
> format which isn't for humans at all.

I'm pretty sure it basically *is* unified diff format, just with the
line-starting +/- chars replaced by highlighting.

> This complicates and slows down 
> code revision simultaneously reducing its quality.
> 
> Something must be done about it to stop wasting people time without
> any real reason.
> 
> 
> Possible solutions:
> 
> * Instruct reviewers to install SmartGit, KDiff3 or something with
> human readable diff and fetch from repos of pull request senders.
>      - Will spend reviewers time.
>      - Will not auto-update on pull update.
> 

Personally, I always have my Tortoise* tools set up to use Beyond
Compare. Same sort of thing. And yes, vastly superior than the typical
Git diff stuff.

> * Instruct pull senders to also create a pull on bitbucket.org which
> has diff for human beings and push both simultaneously.
>      - Will spend pull senders time but not significantly.
>      + Will allow code line-comments on bitbucket.org's better diff.
> 

I think this is way too much of a "duplicated effort" deal to be
realistic.

> * Move to bitbucket.org
>      + Good diff
>      - Need to instruct everybody about move
>      - Possible lack of some futures (only possible, I don't know any)

+ Don't have to deal with the piece of shit GitHub anymore.

I'd personally be thrilled with this one, as I hate GitHub with a
passion, but I don't see it realistically happening.

> 
> * Write browser plug-in to fix Github diff
>      - Somebody has to do it.
>      - Some browser will not support such plug-in anyway.

Yea, it's just a problematic hack.

> 
> * Write stand-alone application to work with Github
>      - Somebody has to spend a lot of time for it.
> 

I've been *REALLY* wanting to see this happen. I was very disappointed
when "GitHub for Windows" turned out to not be this at all, but
rather nothing more than a really, really crappy substitute for
TortoiseGit or any other Git GUI frontend.

> * Write an angry letter to Github support (signed "frustrated D
> community" )
>      + The easiest way.
>      - The letter can be ignored.
> 

That'd be nice if it'd actually work!

> 
> P.S.
> Looks like Github's owners doesn't care at all about current users,
> only abut needless features and GUI glance to involve new ones
> because otherwise I have no explanation of this sad situation.
> 

Agree. I've been getting the feeling they care more about milking the
"Web 2.0" cow than providing a good product with a reasonable (and fast)
user experience. (Which is kinda strange considering it's a site that's
specifically designed to revolve around a tool, Git, which takes speed
as one of it's biggest selling points.)