[OT] GitHub now supports viewing diffs in split mode

[Jacob Carlborg via Digitalmars-d]

On 05/09/14 09:51, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

> Hmm, checking out the demo server, that side-by-side diff still doesn't
> really compare to the non-HTML ones I've used. On the real ones, the
> horizontal scrollbar is never hidden below the bottom of the window, all
> the way down at the bottom of the diffed files, like this one is. And
> the horizontal sizes and positions are normally kept pretty much in
> sync, unlike these HTML versions.
>
> See this:
> http://meldmerge.org/images/meld-filediff-full.png
>
> That's how it should work, and how every real GUI diff tool I've used
> works. And it's done that way for good reason. The horizontal scroll bar
> is always right there. And scrolling it will scroll both together,
> instead of awkwardly scrolling one unified viewport within a larger
> "document" (which isn't nearly as practical).

Right, I didn't think of that. I looked at a small diff.

> By comparison, the GitHub and Gitlab side-by-side diffs both fall
> squarely into "cute little trick" territory rather than
> "professional-grade software". Granted, GitHub and Gitlab pretty much
> have their hands tied on the matter: It would likely be rather
> difficult, if realistically possible, to make it work right given their
> constraints. But that's the price they pay for clinging to HTML as their
> one and only UI.

Yeah, having a web UI doesn't make it easier.

> No, I've tried those. Disappointingly, they're not *at all* what they
> sound like.
>
> You've seen that "Clone via GitHub for Windows" button in every GitHub
> repo? *That* is pretty much what the whole thing is all about.
>
> JavaScript doesn't give them a way to invoke "git clone ..." on the
> client's computer, so they made a "program" to let them do it and
> claimed it was "GitHub on the desktop" (which really isn't true at all).
> And from what I can tell, it was never even *intended* to be any sort of
> alternative to the web interface, despite what it sounds like.
>
> They're really nothing more than ordinary Git clients, like TortoiseGit
> or even "Git GUI", except straitjacketed and not particularly useful.
> Pretty much anything that GitHub's web interface provides, is still
> *expected* to be done via the web interface. "GitHub for Win/Mac"
> doesn't even attempt to provide access to most (any?) of those features.
>
> Again, it's mainly just intended to be a way for "dummies" to clone a
> GitHub repo. It's a glorified GUI wrapper for "git clone
> [protocol]:github.com/[repo]" and a few other trivial things.

I never used the Github application and I never intend to. The only 
useful Git related application I use is Gitx. It's similar to gitg or 
gitk and I use it only for looking a the history. Oh, and the Git 
integration in TextMate is pretty nice.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg