4 ms·

The key insight in the third sentence? > ... CRDTs for version control, which is long overdue but hasn’t happened yet Pijul happened and it has hundreds - per

The key insight in the third sentence? > ... CRDTs for version control, which is long overdue but hasn’t happened yet Pijul happened and it has hundreds - perhaps thousands - of hours of real expert developer's toil put in it. Not that Bram is not one of those, but the post reads like you all know what.

simonw 6mo ago
I hadn't heard of Pijul. My first search took me to https://github.com/8l/pijul https://github.com/8l/pijul which hasn't been updated in 11 years, but it turns out that's misleading and the official repo at https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/pijul https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/pijul had a commit last month. ... and of course it is, because Pijul uses Pijul for development, not Git and GitHub!
- idoubtit 6mo ago
  The canonical website is https://pijul.org https://pijul.org. The homepage has a link to the pijul source repository.
  - ozten 6mo ago
    They should mirror on GitHub for marketing purposes
    - nicoty 6mo ago
      How would they do that if they don't use git for version control? Does GitHub allow other forms of version control other than git?
      - simonw 6mo ago
        SQLite does it despite using Fossil - their mirror is at https://github.com/sqlite/sqlite https://github.com/sqlite/sqlite Git is so established now that it's sensible for alternative VCS to have a mode where they can imitate the Git protocol - or seven without that you can still checkout the latest version of your repo and git push that on a periodic basis.
        verdverm 6mo ago
        Similarly, CUE uses Gerrit and has two way sync. If you are building a VCS today, git interop is a must.
        adastra22 6mo ago
        What if the whole point of your VCS is that it its core data structure is nothing like git's at all?
        verdverm 6mo ago
        As a user, why do I care how the internals work? What I do care about is an easy path to progressive adoption and migration. Without that, I cannot convince my team / org to force everyone over.
        adastra22 6mo ago
        It solves problems that you dont encounter if you are asking that question. I’ve lost a literal year or more of my life, in aggregate, to rebasing changes against upstream that could have been handled automatically by a sufficiently smart VCS.
        verdverm 6mo ago
        An alternative explanation is that I already have a tool that helps me with these situations. The question was a bit rhetorical, because the vast majority of devs don't care what language many of their tools are written in or what algos are used. A different example, Go's MVS algo can be considered much better for dependency management. What are your thoughts on the SAT solver being replaced in your preferred language tooling? It would mean the end of lock files
        adastra22 6mo ago
        If you have a tool for better rebasing, I’d love to hear it.
      - ozten 6mo ago
        pijul clone https://nest.pijul.org/pijul/pijul https://nest.pijul.org/pijul/pijul pijul log --hash-only > all_changes.txt pijul unrecord --all git init ``` for HASH in $(cat all_changes.txt); do pijul apply "$HASH" pijul reset # sync working copy to channel state git add -A git commit -m "pijul change: $HASH" done ``` git remote add origin git@github.com:you/pijul-mirror.git git push -u origin main
- codethief 6mo ago
  > I hadn't heard of Pijul I'm surprised! Pijul has been discussed here on HN many, many times. My impression is that many people here were hoping that Pijul might eventually become a serious Git contender but these days people seem to be more excited about Jujutsu, likely because migration is much easier.
  - simonw 6mo ago
    Looks like it makes the homepage only once or twice a year (using points>50 as a proxy for that), had more buzz around five years ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=pijul%20points%3E50&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  - jedberg 6mo ago
    I too am here all the time and have never heard of it. But it looks interesting.
vova_hn2 6mo ago
I have a weird hobby: about once a year I go to the theory page [0] in pijul manual and see if they have fixed the TeX formatting yet. You would think that if a better, more sound model of storing patches is your whole selling point, you would want to make as easy as possible for people who are interested in the project to actually understand it. It is really weird not to care about the first impression that your manual makes on a curious reader. Currently, I'm about 6 years into the experiment. Approximately 2 years in (about 4 years ago), I've actually went to the Pijul Nest and reported [1] the issue. I got an explanation on fixing this issue locally, but weirly enough, the fix still wasn't actually implemented on the public version. I'll report back in about a year with an update on the experiment. [0] https://pijul.org/manual/theory.html https://pijul.org/manual/theory.html [1] https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/manual/discussions/46 https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/manual/discussions/46
- AceJohnny2 6mo ago
  > It is really weird not to care about the first impression that your manual makes on a curious reader. On the contrary, I think this is an all-too-familiar pitfall for the, er... technically minded. "I've implemented it in the code. My work here is done. The rest is window dressing."
- oofbey 6mo ago
  Hilarious. I agree that it says a lot how a project handles reports like these.
- onoesworkacct 6mo ago
  I mean, I personally just saw some stuff inside dollar signs and went "huh, weird choice of delimiter"
rbsmith 6mo ago
Do you use Pijul? From time to time, I do a 'pijul pull -a' into the pijul source tree, and I get a conflict (no local work on my part). Is there a way to do a tracking update pull? I didn't see one, so I toss the repo and reclone. What works for you in tracking what's going on there?
- adastra22 6mo ago
  From time to time I get curious about Pijul, attempt to pull the Pijul repo from the nest, and encounter a no-workaround-possible bug in the network sync. I have never been able to do a fresh clone of Pijul. It is very hard to take a project like this seriously.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
mkj 6mo ago
Are you saying Bram hasn't worked on VCS problems much? https://web.archive.org/web/20071213090008/http://codeville.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20071213090008/http://codeville.... is 20 years.
zamalek 6mo ago
Pijul isn't a CRDT is it? It's theory of patches (i.e. DARCS++) alongside native conflicts.
- gnufx 6mo ago
  Its author says it implements a CRDT in its theory documentation.

simonw 6mo ago

I hadn't heard of Pijul. My first search took me to https://github.com/8l/pijul https://github.com/8l/pijul which hasn't been updated in 11 years, but it turns out that's misleading and the official repo at https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/pijul https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/pijul had a commit last month. ... and of course it is, because Pijul uses Pijul for development, not Git and GitHub!

idoubtit 6mo ago
The canonical website is https://pijul.org https://pijul.org. The homepage has a link to the pijul source repository.
- ozten 6mo ago
  They should mirror on GitHub for marketing purposes
  - nicoty 6mo ago
    How would they do that if they don't use git for version control? Does GitHub allow other forms of version control other than git?
    - simonw 6mo ago
      SQLite does it despite using Fossil - their mirror is at https://github.com/sqlite/sqlite https://github.com/sqlite/sqlite Git is so established now that it's sensible for alternative VCS to have a mode where they can imitate the Git protocol - or seven without that you can still checkout the latest version of your repo and git push that on a periodic basis.
      - verdverm 6mo ago
        Similarly, CUE uses Gerrit and has two way sync. If you are building a VCS today, git interop is a must.
        adastra22 6mo ago
        What if the whole point of your VCS is that it its core data structure is nothing like git's at all?
        verdverm 6mo ago
        As a user, why do I care how the internals work? What I do care about is an easy path to progressive adoption and migration. Without that, I cannot convince my team / org to force everyone over.
        adastra22 6mo ago
        It solves problems that you dont encounter if you are asking that question. I’ve lost a literal year or more of my life, in aggregate, to rebasing changes against upstream that could have been handled automatically by a sufficiently smart VCS.
        verdverm 6mo ago
        An alternative explanation is that I already have a tool that helps me with these situations. The question was a bit rhetorical, because the vast majority of devs don't care what language many of their tools are written in or what algos are used. A different example, Go's MVS algo can be considered much better for dependency management. What are your thoughts on the SAT solver being replaced in your preferred language tooling? It would mean the end of lock files
        adastra22 6mo ago
        If you have a tool for better rebasing, I’d love to hear it.
    - ozten 6mo ago
      pijul clone https://nest.pijul.org/pijul/pijul https://nest.pijul.org/pijul/pijul pijul log --hash-only > all_changes.txt pijul unrecord --all git init ``` for HASH in $(cat all_changes.txt); do pijul apply "$HASH" pijul reset # sync working copy to channel state git add -A git commit -m "pijul change: $HASH" done ``` git remote add origin git@github.com:you/pijul-mirror.git git push -u origin main
codethief 6mo ago
> I hadn't heard of Pijul I'm surprised! Pijul has been discussed here on HN many, many times. My impression is that many people here were hoping that Pijul might eventually become a serious Git contender but these days people seem to be more excited about Jujutsu, likely because migration is much easier.
- simonw 6mo ago
  Looks like it makes the homepage only once or twice a year (using points>50 as a proxy for that), had more buzz around five years ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=pijul%20points%3E50&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- jedberg 6mo ago
  I too am here all the time and have never heard of it. But it looks interesting.

vova_hn2 6mo ago

I have a weird hobby: about once a year I go to the theory page [0] in pijul manual and see if they have fixed the TeX formatting yet. You would think that if a better, more sound model of storing patches is your whole selling point, you would want to make as easy as possible for people who are interested in the project to actually understand it. It is really weird not to care about the first impression that your manual makes on a curious reader. Currently, I'm about 6 years into the experiment. Approximately 2 years in (about 4 years ago), I've actually went to the Pijul Nest and reported [1] the issue. I got an explanation on fixing this issue locally, but weirly enough, the fix still wasn't actually implemented on the public version. I'll report back in about a year with an update on the experiment. [0] https://pijul.org/manual/theory.html https://pijul.org/manual/theory.html [1] https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/manual/discussions/46 https://nest.pijul.com/pijul/manual/discussions/46

AceJohnny2 6mo ago
> It is really weird not to care about the first impression that your manual makes on a curious reader. On the contrary, I think this is an all-too-familiar pitfall for the, er... technically minded. "I've implemented it in the code. My work here is done. The rest is window dressing."
oofbey 6mo ago
Hilarious. I agree that it says a lot how a project handles reports like these.
onoesworkacct 6mo ago
I mean, I personally just saw some stuff inside dollar signs and went "huh, weird choice of delimiter"

rbsmith 6mo ago

Do you use Pijul? From time to time, I do a 'pijul pull -a' into the pijul source tree, and I get a conflict (no local work on my part). Is there a way to do a tracking update pull? I didn't see one, so I toss the repo and reclone. What works for you in tracking what's going on there?

adastra22 6mo ago
From time to time I get curious about Pijul, attempt to pull the Pijul repo from the nest, and encounter a no-workaround-possible bug in the network sync. I have never been able to do a fresh clone of Pijul. It is very hard to take a project like this seriously.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

mkj 6mo ago

Are you saying Bram hasn't worked on VCS problems much? https://web.archive.org/web/20071213090008/http://codeville.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20071213090008/http://codeville.... is 20 years.

zamalek 6mo ago

Pijul isn't a CRDT is it? It's theory of patches (i.e. DARCS++) alongside native conflicts.

gnufx 6mo ago
Its author says it implements a CRDT in its theory documentation.