[HN Gopher] WebKit on GitHub ___________________________________________________________________ WebKit on GitHub Author : miohtama Score : 212 points Date : 2022-08-31 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (webkit.org) (TXT) w3m dump (webkit.org) | doe88 wrote: | Is there a reason why it seems there is so little | documentation/comments in source files of WebKit? Or maybe I'm | missing something/opened the wrong files. | mnutt wrote: | Documentation has been a bit of a challenge in my experience. | There are some high-level docs at https://trac.webkit.org/wiki | though many are 10-15 years old at this point. My approach has | been to look at the commit history for the file to see if the | changesets shed any light, and sometimes go to the attached | bugzilla link to see if there was any discussion about the | change there. Then attach a debugger and step through to try to | uncover how the classes relate to one another. | tuankiet65 wrote: | You aren't opening the wrong file, there isn't much | documentation in WebKit besides a few Markdown files. I'm not | sure why this is the case. | saagarjha wrote: | Most WebKit developers are good at documentation, it's just | that they often work on things that their employer would not | like being made obvious because it deals with SPI or unreleased | products or security vulnerabilities. Commit messages are | actually pretty good for the most part except in these | situations where a laconic or purposefully misleading message | will be used. | favorited wrote: | TIL about `git rev-list --count HEAD`. I've been spelling it `git | rev-list HEAD | wc -l` for years. | jamal-kumar wrote: | Yeah I think that's one of those features that comes in handy | when you're developing on Windows with git | favorited wrote: | Interesting - what makes it particularly handy on Windows? | | I've only used it for automating build numbers. The number of | commits on the main branch behaves, in practice, close enough | to a monotonically increasing counter that it works 99.9% of | the time without anyone thinking about it. | klodolph wrote: | "Handy" because Windows doesn't have the same set of | utilities like wc. | cerved wrote: | in git for windows, wc is included | xfmpXIe76lF4GfR wrote: | Depending on which git distro you installed and what | options you chose, sure. | tiffanyh wrote: | License? | | Maybe I just can't find it but what's the license used for | Webkit? It doesn't appear in the repo. | cxr wrote: | > License? [...] It doesn't appear in the repo. | | Wrong. There are copyright notices and license terms at the top | of every noteworthy file that contains substantial code. | stcont wrote: | BSD for some, LGPL v 2 for the rest. | nailer wrote: | Webkit is a fork of KHTML so presumably restricted (not not) by | whatever the open source license KHTML license allows. | sedeki wrote: | They mention that they'd ideally want a natural ordering on the | commit hashes. Something to do with their zero-tolerence security | policy. | | What's the background there? Why do they need a natural ordering? | anderskaseorg wrote: | Git already has an ordering like this built in as 'git | describe'. | | https://git-scm.com/docs/git-describe $ git | describe 593a2a5d0639b4b4f91ff6e6ffb64e72020f8fd8 | v2.34.1-83-g593a2a5d06 | | This commit is 83 commits after the v2.34.1 tag. Git accepts | this identifier anywhere it would accept a commit hash, e.g.: | $ git log v2.34.1-83-g593a2a5d06 $ git show | v2.34.1-83-g593a2a5d06:branch.c | | https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git/commit/?id=v2.34.... | cerved wrote: | they want a global, presumably centralized, order | Trufa wrote: | I have literally 0 inside knowledge but from the article it | seems to be a more human visual thing than a software problem, | something like this was working in 12 and broken in 13 is a | more obvious regression than this was working in aaab131 and | broken in ccad53s | LeifCarrotson wrote: | 13 being greater than 12 is not a property that's just for | human vision. In Subversion a commit on a branch increments | the _global_ commit number. | | Git doesn't have a concept of one commit being before or | after another once you've branched, or any native mechanism | for enforcing global state across branches. | mattkrause wrote: | Sequential IDs also let you think about ranges: a feature was | introduced in 11, broke in 17-23, and worked thereafter. | | I used SVN like this in grad school: data files included the | SVN $Id$ of the script that generated them. This let you work | around bugs and experimental changes. For example, you might | hardcode a delay, realize it should be longer, and then | eventually decide to let the experimenter adjust it on the | fly. This is easy with sequential ids: if | version < 11: delay = 50 elif 11 <= version | < 29: delay = 100 else delay = | params.delay | | Using git hashes, you'd need to maintain an exhaustive list | of every version ever run, which is even tricker because | there isn't a sole source of truth like an SVN repo. | cerved wrote: | I must be missing something because this seems odd, why | isn't this code just different in each corresponding | version? | mattkrause wrote: | The SVN-controlled code _generated_ data by controlling | hardware and embedded the $Id$ of the controlling script | in its output. I would then refer to the version ID | later, when loading that data in for _analysis_. This | accounted for any changes to the data-generating code. | | Sometimes these were bugs. For example, we tracked the | orientation and direction of objects moving on a screen. | One update redefined 0deg to be up/north/12:00 instead of | the +x direction used before. The code which loaded these | files checked the $Id$ value and rotated the directional | data so that the entire dataset used the same definition. | xfmpXIe76lF4GfR wrote: | Git also lets you think about ranges. You just tell it the | range and it figures out what commits are in the range. You | can also get a sequential number from whatever point you | choose with tools like `git describe`. | tln wrote: | "zero-tolerance performance regression policy"... no patch can | land if it regresses benchmarked performance. | | I'm guessing the tooling around this used subversion's | increasing commit numbers and it was easier to add a shim to | git, than to rewrite or rethink the tooling. | usefulcat wrote: | > no patch can land if it regresses benchmarked performance | | ..unless it fixes some important security vulnerability, one | hopes.. | mhh__ wrote: | the trick is to change the benchmark at the same time | btown wrote: | Via https://webkit.org/performance/ : | | > If a patch lands that regresses performance according to | our benchmarks, then the person responsible must either | back the patch out of the tree or drop everything | immediately and fix the regression. | | I imagine that a security hotfix would lead almost | immediately to the second situation (perhaps as soon as the | implementor had gotten some sleep!) | xfmpXIe76lF4GfR wrote: | git literally has built-in tooling for this. It's called | bisect (and they literally mention "bisection" in the next | sentence). | nemetroid wrote: | Zero-tolerance _performance_ policy. You can find the policy | [1] by searching the web. And the _hashes_ don 't have to be | ordered. | | 1: https://webkit.org/performance/ | brnt wrote: | Could WebKit be a viable alternative to Blink, should Mozilla | bite the dust? | cwp wrote: | Sigh... apparently I'm old. | pipeline_peak wrote: | Apple has iOS browser control on complete lockdown, so even if | it performed as bad as Gecko, they're pretty well off. | | > bite the dust | | If I were ceo of Mozilla I would have cut off Firefox | development like 5 years ago. It doesn't look pretty, but AOL | and Yahoo changed assets, they don't look as ugly. But I also | hate a lot of what they currently stand for, and they don't | really have assets. They're like some NPR for web standards | documentation, and while it is the best, it's not very | valuable. Google seems to have a lot of leading control while | Mozilla is angry outside, with a megaphone, and red-orange dyed | hair. | | They've always been open source, they'll die of natural causes. | sgjohnson wrote: | > But I also hate a lot of what they currently stand for. | | What exactly out of this this you hate so much? | https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/advocacy/ | pipeline_peak wrote: | lol so much noise, if this is a browser dev company, | they're no better than I am on HN right now during work | hours. | sgjohnson wrote: | But it's far more than a browser dev company, and the | Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit entity. | pipeline_peak wrote: | I guess, I hate to be more pessimistic than I already am, | but when I see pointless petitions to "Facebook: Stop | Group Recommendations" I don't see anyone over there | truly "fighting the good fight". I think GNU is a far | better example of this type of action. | | I think an open source foundation has to stand on the | shoulder of a valuable product to get noticed. GNU has | all of its things, Mozilla is an acoustic guitar busker | playing "bulls on parade by Ratm" outside of a Barnes and | Nobles. | ThunderSizzle wrote: | Mozilla: A healthy internet requires an active, global | community. | | Also Mozilla: We need more than deplatforming [of those we | disagree with and already attempted to deplatform] | Dalewyn wrote: | Personally? All of it. | | None of Mozilla's virtue signalling serves to bring back | the Firefox of yore. Firefox has instead followed Chrome's | heels at every turn to the point I might as well just use | the real deal rather than a third-rate knock off. | | I want a lean, effective browser that I can tailor to my | specific needs and desires, and Firefox has been not that | for at least 20 years. | | Mozilla is (supposed to be) a collective of computer | programmers, not activists and lobbyists. So fuck their | advocacy, more accurately virtue signalling. All of it. The | specifics don't matter. Fuck all of that noise. If they go | back to making some good software I might be more | supportive and respectful of them again, but not a step | before. | Cyberdog wrote: | What does Mozilla biting the dust have to do with WebKit being | viable? | | And even if they did, I think Gecko has enough of a fan base | that it would live on for a very long time. NetSurf and Dillo | are still around after all. | JohnTHaller wrote: | Blink is a fork of WebKit. Apple manages WebKit development. | Google manages Blink development. | no_way wrote: | It is a fork, but that was really long time ago, most parts | of both engines were completely rewritten so for all intents | and purposes these are completely different engines. | filmgirlcw wrote: | They've splintered a ton over the years for sure, but there | are still similarities. But yes, this isn't like the first | few years when Blink was just WebKit with V8. | | But on the whole, Blink is still more similar to WebKit | than it is to Gecko. | capableweb wrote: | Maybe not _really long time_ ago, maybe around ten if I 'm | remembering correctly. But, maybe in _web time_ , that's | pretty long time ago. | kitsunesoba wrote: | Ideally, we need both Gecko and WebKit to be healthy, with | additional promising alternatives on the horizon. | [deleted] | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | 1. Yes | | 2. No | olliej wrote: | right? We already have an IE-esque level of monopoly and | associated behavior from chrome/blink. Making it just | blink+webkit seems like it would be even worse - even though | they have diverged significantly it's also wrong to think | they're "different" in the sense of gecko and blink/webkit or | even presto. | | I think the real problem is the gecko and spidermonkey seem | to be falling significantly behind on real user experience. | This is ignoring the Firefox application itself which I find | super irksome. | | But as their gross built in tracking+advertising shows they | are at least somewhat hurting for cash which does not help, | and encourages gross stuff like said spam+tracking. | | It doesn't help that the google folk keep shoving out half- | assed specs for whatever some google team has decided they | want/need with specs but little thought of generally of how | to make more universal solutions. That just means you've got | constant pressure to implement ever increasing numbers of | standards just to stay in place - if apple (and technically | MS in the past) has difficulty keeping up with the constant | "spec" spam it's hard to see Mozilla managing in the longer | term. | sph wrote: | Not any more viable than it is now. | | Brendan Eich IIRC said they looked into building Brave on top | of Webkit but it was so hard to compile and embed across all | three platforms that they went with Chromium. Same story with | Gecko. | | So that's another reason why we now have a Blink monoculture: | because the alternative engines didn't spend any effort in | making them usable by third party applications. | vbezhenar wrote: | If that's the same WebKit powering Safari, why not. It's the | second most popular browser after all. | itslennysfault wrote: | It's also the worst browser and the bane of every developers | existence. It's legit the new IE. | brnt wrote: | AFAIK, Apples control over WebKit is not any less than | Googles over Blink, which many say is the source of many of | the webs problems. I remember the days Apple posted tarballs | infrequently. I'm wondering if this move may open development | up, and thus may become a codebase more widely 'owned' than | Blink's. | babypuncher wrote: | The problem with Blink is not necessarily that Google | controls it, the problem is that Blink owns the lion's | share of the browser market. This makes Google's control of | Blink a problem, since it effectively means Google controls | the lion's share of the browser market. | GeekyBear wrote: | > Apples control over WebKit is not any less than Googles | over Blink, which many say is the source of many of the | webs problems | | I'd say that the issue with Google's control of web | standards stem from their surveillance capitalism business | model. | pdpi wrote: | Microsoft's stranglehold over the browser market was a | pretty huge problem, irrespective of their business | model. The web is way too important to be so tightly | controlled by one single company, no matter who they may | be. | Tijdreiziger wrote: | Microsoft's business model was 'we need to deal with | Netscape before the Web kicks our ass' followed by 'we | own the market now, no need to spend resources improving | this'. | | Of course, Firefox and later Chrome came around, so in | the end the Web kicked Microsoft's ass anyway. | GeekyBear wrote: | It isn't Microsoft that has entered the extinguish phase | for ad blocking browser add-ons. I also don't remember | Microsoft doing anything as anti-user as trying to keep | pop-up blockers from working back in the bad old days. | filmgirlcw wrote: | I mean, Blink is a fork of WebKit, so yes? But it's also even | less-responsive to upstream contributions so, outside of | embedded systems that had previously adopted WebKit, I | seriously doubt it'll recapture the traction it had before the | fork. | tpoacher wrote: | The title on HN is a bit silly. | | Presumably they migrated from subversion to git. And then hosted | their bare git repository Github to serve as their "central" | repository. | | So, where was their svn repository hosted before this? | [deleted] | filmgirlcw wrote: | On their own SVN instance on WebKit.org (which is maintained by | Apple) | latchkey wrote: | As someone who was there in the very very early Subversion | meetings, I'm surprised it took this long for them to migrate. | bastardoperator wrote: | If they had floating or dynamic externals and a bunch of | permission models, I'm not surprised at all. I'd label this | more of a conversion versus a migration. | xtracto wrote: | I remember migrating some codebase from CVS to SVN ... and this | was sometime after CVS was adopted instead of "at the end of | the day, every dev will copy his change into a floppy disk and | give it to the Tech Lead for merging". | | This was during the 90s in a software development company in | Mexico. Good times! | miohtama wrote: | What's a decade or two in the grand scale :) | olliej wrote: | The Git dev model is _very_ different from cvs, svn, etc so the | trade offs are less obvious. | | A lot of the benefit of git to me has always been the local | development model, but the git-svn bridge made that largely | transparent which I think lowered the pressure to change. | latchkey wrote: | > The Git dev model is _very_ different from cvs, svn, etc so | the trade offs are less obvious. | | I think that the difference makes the tradeoffs using | anything other than git, more obvious. I even held out myself | for a very long time with svn vs. git and once I switched... | I kicked myself for not doing so earlier. | | But, like they said in the post... they did need a feature, | which is core to svn (incrementing changelog ids) and a | workaround in git. Minor in the grand scheme of things. | pipeline_peak wrote: | This is one of those things you don't really want to announce. | It's best to quietly make the migration and sweep it under the | rug. | jon-wood wrote: | Why wouldn't an open source project announce a change to the | place their source is hosted on their own blog? Why would they | want to sweep it under the rug? | ian-g wrote: | I mean, as far as annoucements go, it's a pretty quiet one. | | We did this. We chose the obvious host. We like ordering | commits chronologically, we came up with something for that. Ok | bye. | williamscales wrote: | Does Apple not have an internal department that handles this | for all their teams? Seems kinda weird for a division of a | company to even have to choose their host. | olliej wrote: | The Open-source projects generally do things separately - | e.g. llvm, as you're otherwise requiring apple set up a new | account system (blocking contributing on iCloud account | would seem less great), and building up its own UI and | infrastructure for a git interface. | | Also given that GitHub is a somewhat universally understood | host that people seem to like, and it has all that | UI/development integration that people like it kind of | makes sense to just use that. It also seems that having | GitHub accounts is increasingly widely spread so | contributors would not necessarily have to create yet | another account with yet another service. | pipeline_peak wrote: | Why risk anything at all, who outside webkit developers needs | to know this? | | Idk how investors, or any powerful external entities think, | but switching to Git in 2022 isn't net positive news. | | It may be a subtle announcement, but it made it's way onto | the forum of a Startup generator / Investment fund. | barkingcat wrote: | No way ... as an open source project this is the kind of thing | you want to tell everyone. | joemaller1 wrote: | Curious to see how this affects contributions. | lxe wrote: | > git's distributed nature makes it easy for not just multiple | developers, but multiple organizations to collaborate on a single | project. | | Git is as "distributed" as Ethereum at this point. You have a | central repo on github onto which you push changes. Just because | you have a copy of the main branch when you're working on stuff, | it's no different from SVN. | | Yes it has the capability to be distributed, and individual | contributors can certainly host their own git servers and you can | have as many remotes as there are contributors, but we aren't | doing things this way are we? | simonw wrote: | I think the point here is that you ARE doing things that way if | you are multiple companies collaborating on something at the | scale of WebKit. | ipaddr wrote: | You are seeing the tip of the iceburg. The most discoverable | online platform is github and others exist at much smaller | numbers. Because these are public they are easy to see and | count. Private instances are hidden by default which makes them | hard to count. | aendruk wrote: | That's a hefty repository if all you want [1] is part of it. | Subversion offers a way to download just a subdirectory; is there | an analogous solution for Git? | | [1]: https://github.com/HimbeersaftLP/ios-safari-remote-debug- | kit... | a_t48 wrote: | `git subtree` but it might still download the whole history | gman83 wrote: | sparse-checkout -- https://github.blog/2020-01-17-bring-your- | monorepo-down-to-s... | nimbius wrote: | github has had more than _fifty_ outages this year alone, and has | a rocky history of recourselessly banning users from countries | that are sanctioned by the United States. switching to github | makes no sense if "The WebKit project is interested in | contributions and feedback from developers around the world." | | https://www.githubstatus.com/ | | who made this decision? | ranman wrote: | FWIW not all of those outages were the core git/web product. A | lot of those were GitHub actions or other associated | functionality... but yeah it goes down disturbingly often given | how much we all depend on it. | stusmall wrote: | I don't think WebKit reasonably sees itself as a risk for US | sanctions unless they have an open source money laundering | feature that no one has told me about. | [deleted] | [deleted] | jorblumesea wrote: | Have you ever used SVN? | | It's like git, but even more connected to a centralized server. | lapinot wrote: | I think GP is not talking about git in general, but about | choosing a free-tier hosting by an american commercial | entity, and not by the project itself or some other umbrella | organization. | therealmarv wrote: | hm, git is distributed and works offline https://git- | scm.com/about/distributed | profmonocle wrote: | It "works offline" in that you can create commits, view | project history, and view every branch while offline. But | fetching and pushing are such a common part of an engineer's | day-to-day workflow that a poorly-timed outage of your remote | repo is very disruptive, especially if you use git for | deployment. | [deleted] | maxwell wrote: | > recourselessly banning users from countries that are | sanctioned by the United States | | Are you suggesting that Microsoft should intentionally opt not | to comply with OFAC sanctions? | | Do you know of any non-OFAC sanctioned entities that have made | that choice? | | Are you aware of any OFAC sanctioned entities that maintain | public accounts on any other code sharing sites? | joecool1029 wrote: | AFAIK Github can provide free access to public repositories | even if the users are subject to OFAC sanctions. In some | cases they've applied for (and received) exemptions to allow | for sales of paid services: | https://github.blog/2021-01-05-advancing-developer- | freedom-g... | klodolph wrote: | I think the bigger picture here is the migration to Git, since | that lets you keep working during an outage. SVN does not. | lapinot wrote: | > I think the bigger picture here is the migration to Git | | Is it tho? Why wouldn't they just install git on their | server? Now there is not many mainstream successful social | hosting for svn. They acknowledge the choice of github is to | attract devs. So it's as much about the software as about the | type of hosting and web presence. | ajross wrote: | In fact the very fact that your source control hosting | service can be surpringly[1] unreliable is the best | advertisement for git you could imagine. | | In fact, if github disappeared from the internet today, all | but the largest projects could just set up an ssh-accessible | box somewhere and continue work (code review and issue | interfaces notwithstanding, of course), probably with 24 | hours. | | [1] I work in github-cloned repositories almost full time. | And sure, I remember a handful of times over the past 4-5 | years where it's been down when I wanted to push something. I | had no idea it was 50x/year! And that's because "working in a | github-cloned repository" doesn't, in fact, require much | contact with github itself. | schmichael wrote: | > github has had more than fifty outages this year alone | | I'm a heavy user of github every day and maybe 1 or 2 of these | caused me any disruption whatsoever. Most of the time I think | they created productivity boosts as people just focused on what | they were working on instead of reacting to Github | notifications about issues or PRs or failing tests or whatever. | | > a rocky history of recourselessly banning users from | countries that are sanctioned by the United States | | This is likely a feature for companies, projects, and | organizations who have (or want) to adhere to the same strict | regulations. | [deleted] | tolmasky wrote: | Funny story: my first task when I joined the original iPhone team | was to merge our forked WebKit with master. It was a sort of | hazing ritual slash "when else would we do it but when someone | new joins?". Anyways, we used a tool called SVK[1] in order to | get very primitive "git-like" abilities. It was basically a bunch | of scripts that used SVN under the hood. For example, in order to | get the "local everything"-style behaviors of git, the very first | thing it did was checkout every single version of the repository | in question. For WebKit, this meant that the first day was spent | leaving the computer alone and letting it download for hours. I | made the mistake of having a space somewhere in the path of the | target folder, which broke something or other, so I ended up | having to do it all over again. | | Anyways, I distinctly remember one of the instructions for | merging WebKit in our internal wiki being something like "now | type `svk merge`, but hit ctrl-c immediately after! You don't | want to use the built-in merge, it'll break everything, but this | is the only way to get a magic number that you can find stored in | [some file] after the merge has started. If it's not there, try | `svk merge` again and let it go a little longer than last time." | A few hires later (I think possibly a year after) someone set up | a git mirror internally to avoid having to do this craziness, | which if I remember correctly, was treated with some skepticism. | This was 2007, so why would we try some new-fangled git thing | when we had svk? | | 1. https://wiki.c2.com/?SvkVersionControl | evmar wrote: | We had a similar rotation on Chrome team for merges from WebKit | (pre fork), and it was similarly a lot of work and clunky | tooling! | | A few times in my career (including this one) I have thought, | "We are sure going to a lot of effort to maintain a modified | copy of that code while also preserving our changes atop it as | we sync, and this is exactly the kind of workflow that Git was | designed to enable." Like, the Linux kernel dev workflow is all | about different maintainers maintaining different branches and | merging between them, and that is where Git comes from. | | So in a setting other than Chrome I have tried out using Git to | try to manage these sorts of situation. I have found in | practice many engineers aren't comfortable enough with Git to | have it end up helping them out tooling-wise. This is | disappointing but also not too unexpected given Git's UI. | taberiand wrote: | I don't understand any developer's that aren't willing to put | in the time to learn how to use Git - to me, it's the single | greatest tool available to enable productivity and confidence | in changing code. There's no shame in using any one of the | many GUI interfaces for Git that make the process simple and | intuitive but even with the CLI, there are only a small | handful of commands that I regularly need to use to do all | the work of managing branches, merges, rebases and resets; | and a lot of the time, there's more than one way to do any | particular operation. | solarkraft wrote: | I'm totally willing to learn the magic of advanced merging, | but most "tell me more about Git" talks/articles rather | want to tell me more about its general internal structure, | which I find very far removed from actually using it. | | So what's the best resource for learning more about using | Git? | rascul wrote: | https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 | saagarjha wrote: | > I don't understand any developer's that aren't willing to | put in the time to learn how to use Git | | Other version control systems exist. Why learn Git if | you've already got one that works? | evmar wrote: | To be clear, I think many developers are comfortable enough | with the small handful of commands most regularly use. For | the more complex case of maintaining a fork of a complex | codebase like WebKit, it's likely you'll need a deeper | understanding of remotes and how to manage complex rebases, | especially in the presence of lots of conflicts. And | possibly some fancier tools like git-subtree. In particular | in WebKit my recollection was it was common to patch | something locally and eventually take it upstream, but | after upstream's requested modifications the patch would | eventually come back around and conflict with itself. | olliej wrote: | Awwwww, I remember back in the days of dealing with CVS, where | there was so much scripting to try and manage basic stuff we take | for granted like creating patches that included new files. | | Subversion was so undeniably superior that everyone was super | happy and instant. Git took much much longer as the complexity | vs. the win was much more debatable to people, so it's | interesting to see this finally happening - I will miss linearly | increasing revision numbers though. | | Glad to see they're keeping with bugzilla though - for whatever | reason I find the GitHub issue tracker super annoying. Presumably | at least part of that is familiarity and/or change resistance :D | JohnTHaller wrote: | With the bugzilla issue tracker, they keep ownership. | usefulcat wrote: | I remember when CVS was the new hotness. I was on a team of 3 | at the time (90s), and one of our members worked remotely, so | the fact that it was actually usable over a dial up connection | was a killer feature for us. Also pretty much anything was | better than SourceSafe, which is what everybody else in the | company was using. | a-dub wrote: | > Subversion was so undeniably superior that everyone was super | happy and instant. Git took much much longer as the complexity | vs. the win was much more debatable to people, so it's | interesting to see this finally happening - I will miss | linearly increasing revision numbers though. | | p4 and then git were easy sells for large projects. while | subversion was faster than cvs with its local hidden copy, many | operations were still dog slow as they'd scan the whole | repository (this was often worked around by creating lots of | small repositories with associated wrapper scripts). p4 and git | on the other hand were designed to handle large trees with | ease. so for something on the scale of an operating system, | browser, or both... the difference in productivity was | significant. (tens of minutes vs single digit seconds for basic | operations) | [deleted] | mnd999 wrote: | Strange choice given how GitHub seems to have moved into the | extinguish phase. | _rrnv wrote: | Subversion started in that phase so maybe they're just trying | to delay the inevitable. | srvmshr wrote: | GitHub is a company & git is a core technology which is | replacing Subversion for version control. FWIW, WebKit could | have moved to Gitlab, Gitea or Bitbucket & still used git. | Subversion & CVS's days are numbered - the writing was on the | wall for many years | olliej wrote: | What do you mean? (Not facetious, I'm out of the loop on such | matters - I thought it was still just git on the cli?) | avg_dev wrote: | https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jun/30/give-up-github- | la... | beermonster wrote: | I assumed it to mean, what with GH being owned by Microsoft, | it's now in the extinguish phase of EEE (embrace, extend, | extinguish). Though if anything I think it's in the extend | phase. | mnd999 wrote: | Yes, that was what I meant. | tibbydudeza wrote: | What does Apple use for source control ???. I know Google is all | custom and MS uses (???) a modified instance of Perforce. | saagarjha wrote: | Lots of Git projects. Internal development has centered around | using Git, even for WebKit, for several years. | bragr wrote: | Microsoft maintains the entire Windows source tree in Git now | and has made some really interesting contributions to git where | it comes to very large projects, though I don't know about the | penetration throughout other dev groups. They also own Github | now obviously. | caycep wrote: | was this before or after the github acquisition? I figure if | they were going to spend the money for github they probably | intend for git to have a bigger role | [deleted] | dark-star wrote: | long before ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-31 23:00 UTC)