Re: Spearheading a TortoiseGIT project

Geoffrey Lee wrote:
> As a TortoiseSVN user, migrating to GIT has been painful, but I like
> its work flow better than SVN's, so I'm seriously considering
> spearheading a "TortoiseGIT" project. I'd like to do my due-diligence
> before I start anything:
>
> 1) Does anybody know of any existing efforts? I'm aware of
> Git-Cheetah, but that project is now abandoned.

There's also 'gitextensions' which offer a shell extension.
http://github.com/spdr870/gitextensions/tree/master/GitShellEx

But I wouldn't even touch that one, seriously. Someone should tell them
that a shell extension must not (I repeat: MUST NOT) use any framework
at all, especially not the .NET framework. All shell extensions must be
written in native code or not at all:
http://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2005/11/18/494572.aspx

breaking other apps and not care is simply not acceptable behavior (I've
told that to two other projects doing that, they both answered basically
"I don't care").

> 2) Is there anything preventing me from using the name TortoiseGIT?

Nope. As long as you clearly communicate that it is a completely
separate project and not related to other Tortoise clients.

> 3) I have plenty of coding experience, but this will be my first open
> source project. Does anyone have any general suggestions or tips
> before I get started?

* think about the license you want to use - this depends on the
libraries you want to use for your project and of course the license of
Git itself
* think about the project goal - a simple sentence would be enough.
Something like "to implement a shell extension which provides a nice UI
for working with Git" or something like that, then put it on your
project page - wich of course leads to:
* set up a project page, mailing list/forum
* find some people who want to join you
* provide downloads as soon as possible - even if the project is far
from stable (just clearly communicate that fact). Without that, you
won't get any user feedback

Also, you should be aware of the fact that once you've started the
project, you have to work on it for a long time. If you can't, the
project will soon become abandoned as many other projects have...

Stefan

P.S. You also might want to take a look at the TortoiseOverlays handler:
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/svn/tortoisesvn/trunk/src/TortoiseOverlays
(username: "guest", leave password empty).
Especially the documentation for it:
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/svn/tortoisesvn/trunk/src/TortoiseOverlays/Documentation.txt

-- 
       ___
  oo  // \\      "De Chelonian Mobile"
 (_,\/ \_/ \     TortoiseSVN
   \ \_/_\_/>    The coolest Interface to (Sub)Version Control
   /_/   \_\     http://tortoisesvn.net
------------------------------------------------------
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=4061&dsMessageId=981731
To unsubscribe from this discussion, e-mail: [users-unsubscribe_at_tortoisesvn.tigris.org].