4 ms·

Free private repositories and out-of-the-box mercurial support. Works well for those small side projects which you do not (yet) want to maintain. I have lots of

Free private repositories and out-of-the-box mercurial support. Works well for those small side projects which you do not (yet) want to maintain. I have lots of stuff in there which i want to keep as reference for projects to come and would never want to release to the public.

moron4hire 12y ago
If you don't yet want to publish, why do you need GitHub or Bitbucket? Why not just keep the repository local?
- c17r 12y ago
  As long as you are backing up your repo in some way, you don't. But these sites just make it easy.
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    Considering you have to use git to use github, isn't it always an extra step to use github for a private project?
    - Sanddancer 12y ago
      There are lots of tools, like tortoisegit, that make that extra step a triviality.
- goblin89 12y ago
  > If you don't yet want to publish, why do you need GitHub or Bitbucket? Why not just keep the repository local? There are some reasons, in my opinion: * Zero friction to start publishing (in case you suddenly want to) * Zero friction to start collaborating * Off-site backup * A kind of self-discipline boost and desire to make your thing publish-ready (get your README, license, packaging in order, organize stuff nicely, observe practices good repositories out there employ. This one could be just me, though, and I suppose it somewhat decreases for private repositories) * Built-in issue management (might be relevant even for personal projects) * Nicer GUI to view the repository structure
- drinchev 12y ago
  > If you don't yet want to publish, why do you need GitHub or Bitbucket? Why not just keep the repository local? My two cents on this are that I always try to outsource any internal services to reduce maintenance time. For example 1. Own git repository will need backup and server configuration to be accessed from all machines that I own, which means I will need to spend time on security. 2. Own GitLab instance will mean 1 + system resources ( GitLab actually uses more than I would like to spare ) 3. If I need to benefit hooks and pretty UI I would also need to do 1 + 2 + writing README files and integrate with different CI services. What I figured out is that there are 1 and 2 outsourced and free ( bitbucket ), so I would not bother doing this on my own.
  - tracker1 12y ago
    If you have a machine with SSH access and git, you can always use git+ssh as a cheap remoting solution... it works pretty well, but usability isn't quite as nice as with github/gitlab etc... If you're one person, it's probably good enough though.
    - drinchev 12y ago
      Yeah I know I've used such a setup for a couple of years. I got a special SSH user "git" with key only login. Later on I wanted to track what repositories I had on that machine and get some stats. I found out about GitLab so I decided to take a spin. Two months after the install I found out I was hacked, because of gitlab-shell binary that I didn't patch :(. Then I decided not to mess with this if I can use it for free. :) Anyway thanks for your comment. I think people that think GitHub is "magic" should run their own repo to see actually where "Git" ends and "Hub" starts.
- MiddleEndian 12y ago
  It's easier and faster to use a service like BitBucket than it is to manage your own Git repositories manually.

moron4hire 12y ago

If you don't yet want to publish, why do you need GitHub or Bitbucket? Why not just keep the repository local?

c17r 12y ago
As long as you are backing up your repo in some way, you don't. But these sites just make it easy.
- moron4hire 12y ago
  Considering you have to use git to use github, isn't it always an extra step to use github for a private project?
  - Sanddancer 12y ago
    There are lots of tools, like tortoisegit, that make that extra step a triviality.
goblin89 12y ago
> If you don't yet want to publish, why do you need GitHub or Bitbucket? Why not just keep the repository local? There are some reasons, in my opinion: * Zero friction to start publishing (in case you suddenly want to) * Zero friction to start collaborating * Off-site backup * A kind of self-discipline boost and desire to make your thing publish-ready (get your README, license, packaging in order, organize stuff nicely, observe practices good repositories out there employ. This one could be just me, though, and I suppose it somewhat decreases for private repositories) * Built-in issue management (might be relevant even for personal projects) * Nicer GUI to view the repository structure
drinchev 12y ago
> If you don't yet want to publish, why do you need GitHub or Bitbucket? Why not just keep the repository local? My two cents on this are that I always try to outsource any internal services to reduce maintenance time. For example 1. Own git repository will need backup and server configuration to be accessed from all machines that I own, which means I will need to spend time on security. 2. Own GitLab instance will mean 1 + system resources ( GitLab actually uses more than I would like to spare ) 3. If I need to benefit hooks and pretty UI I would also need to do 1 + 2 + writing README files and integrate with different CI services. What I figured out is that there are 1 and 2 outsourced and free ( bitbucket ), so I would not bother doing this on my own.
- tracker1 12y ago
  If you have a machine with SSH access and git, you can always use git+ssh as a cheap remoting solution... it works pretty well, but usability isn't quite as nice as with github/gitlab etc... If you're one person, it's probably good enough though.
  - drinchev 12y ago
    Yeah I know I've used such a setup for a couple of years. I got a special SSH user "git" with key only login. Later on I wanted to track what repositories I had on that machine and get some stats. I found out about GitLab so I decided to take a spin. Two months after the install I found out I was hacked, because of gitlab-shell binary that I didn't patch :(. Then I decided not to mess with this if I can use it for free. :) Anyway thanks for your comment. I think people that think GitHub is "magic" should run their own repo to see actually where "Git" ends and "Hub" starts.
MiddleEndian 12y ago
It's easier and faster to use a service like BitBucket than it is to manage your own Git repositories manually.