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This seems like a classic case of novice developers thinking it's a great idea to re-invent the wheel. The page gives no compelling reason why I'd want to adopt

by ebbv 11y ago

This seems like a classic case of novice developers thinking it's a great idea to re-invent the wheel. The page gives no compelling reason why I'd want to adopt this over the much more mature solutions out there. I say they are novice because they are maintaining two parallel codebases, which is a mistake no experienced developer would make.

testcross 11y ago
That's why there is only one implementation of git in the world. Oh, wait...
- heinrich5991 11y ago
  They're not maintained by the same team though.
boothead 11y ago
Clearly rank amateurs to develop a working piece of software from category theory.
- jdbernard 11y ago
  Experience in an academic discipline does not imply experience in software development. I don't know the authors, so I hesitate to judge, but starting with two code bases seems like a pretty rookie move to me, at least without a very compelling reason.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Just look at those plebeians at Shen.
  - rejschaap 11y ago
    It might not be such a bad idea. If the main goal is to develop a specification or standard then it makes sense to have several implementations. The implementations can be used to flesh out and improve the specification. Also, from their website: Why rewrite it in Scala? The Scala implementation is not competing with the OCaml implementation, we do plan to maintain both in the future. Having several implementations of the core forced us to really think the formats through, and will allow others to write tools in the languages the like best, for their favorite platform (try to get and compile OCaml Pijul on Windows!).
    - jdbernard 11y ago
      I missed that section. Seems like they've thought it through. Well, more power to them!
  - DasIch 11y ago
    That's not at all a rookie move. Using two code bases, preferrably in different languages, makes issues in documentation and standardization far more obvious. The approach is quite costly but if you care more about quality and creating an excellent standard than getting a product out of the door quickly, it's certainly worth it.
  - gnufx 11y ago
    darcs.reviewed$ darcs log --match 'author florent\.becker' --count 200 See also their FAQ.
gecko 11y ago
I disagree. Having maintained a massive system that had to go deep into Git's internal data structures, I will tell you that, regardless of what Git's docs might tell you, the actual documentation for most of Git's file formats is, "Whatever the Git commands actually output." This is part of why a perfectly legal Git repository (as far as Git itself is concerned) can sometimes crash libgit2 and JGit. By the Pijul team forcing themselves to have two different implementations in lockstep, they will probably do a very good job avoiding that problem.
- ebbv 11y ago
  That is the most ass backwards reasoning I've ever heard. In order to force yourself to stick to a reliable standard repository format, maintain two codebases at once. What? How about just publish a standard and abide by it.
ketralnis 11y ago
I'm sorry they didn't ask you before spending their time on something that they enjoy and giving it away to the world. Is there something about the software that you feel could be improved, or are you just offended that "novices" write software as a hobby at all?

by ebbv 11y ago

testcross 11y ago

That's why there is only one implementation of git in the world. Oh, wait...

heinrich5991 11y ago
They're not maintained by the same team though.

boothead 11y ago

Clearly rank amateurs to develop a working piece of software from category theory.

jdbernard 11y ago
Experience in an academic discipline does not imply experience in software development. I don't know the authors, so I hesitate to judge, but starting with two code bases seems like a pretty rookie move to me, at least without a very compelling reason.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Just look at those plebeians at Shen.
- rejschaap 11y ago
  It might not be such a bad idea. If the main goal is to develop a specification or standard then it makes sense to have several implementations. The implementations can be used to flesh out and improve the specification. Also, from their website: Why rewrite it in Scala? The Scala implementation is not competing with the OCaml implementation, we do plan to maintain both in the future. Having several implementations of the core forced us to really think the formats through, and will allow others to write tools in the languages the like best, for their favorite platform (try to get and compile OCaml Pijul on Windows!).
  - jdbernard 11y ago
    I missed that section. Seems like they've thought it through. Well, more power to them!
- DasIch 11y ago
  That's not at all a rookie move. Using two code bases, preferrably in different languages, makes issues in documentation and standardization far more obvious. The approach is quite costly but if you care more about quality and creating an excellent standard than getting a product out of the door quickly, it's certainly worth it.
- gnufx 11y ago
  darcs.reviewed$ darcs log --match 'author florent\.becker' --count 200 See also their FAQ.

gecko 11y ago

I disagree. Having maintained a massive system that had to go deep into Git's internal data structures, I will tell you that, regardless of what Git's docs might tell you, the actual documentation for most of Git's file formats is, "Whatever the Git commands actually output." This is part of why a perfectly legal Git repository (as far as Git itself is concerned) can sometimes crash libgit2 and JGit. By the Pijul team forcing themselves to have two different implementations in lockstep, they will probably do a very good job avoiding that problem.

ebbv 11y ago
That is the most ass backwards reasoning I've ever heard. In order to force yourself to stick to a reliable standard repository format, maintain two codebases at once. What? How about just publish a standard and abide by it.

ketralnis 11y ago

I'm sorry they didn't ask you before spending their time on something that they enjoy and giving it away to the world. Is there something about the software that you feel could be improved, or are you just offended that "novices" write software as a hobby at all?