
New features from the last few versions of Git - fanf2
https://blog.github.com/2018-04-05-git-217-released/
======
TekMol
The post itself is informative. But the title is deliberately confusing. This
is not the release announcement. We should not let GitHub take over the Git
brand like they try to do with blog posts like this one.

Most coders these days say they use git while in reality the have no clue how
it works and how to use it. They just use the buttons of tools and services
built on top of it and hope for the best. We would all win if we could
collaborate via the nice functionality Git itself provides.

~~~
nmjohn
> We should not let GitHub take over the Git brand like they try to do with
> blog posts like this one.

Is there a similar blog post by the actual git team sharing this information?
If so, let's link to that - but as I am not aware of one, I do appreciate
github's git release announcements because they are typically a much easier
way to learn about new git features than reading the entire release emails [0]

[0]: [https://www.mail-
archive.com/git@vger.kernel.org/msg145986.h...](https://www.mail-
archive.com/git@vger.kernel.org/msg145986.html)

~~~
adelcambre
> Is there a similar blog post by the actual git team sharing this
> information?

Peff is a member of the Core Git team and is primarily working on open source
git.

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cyphar
I'm wondering whether the intention with these sorts of blog posts (GitHub has
done several of these in the past[1,2], where they provide a summary of the
release notes) is to try to put in people's minds the link that "git" ==
"GitHub". To be fair, the author is actually the 2nd largest contributor (by
commits) to the git project. Just thought it was a bit strange.

[1]: [https://blog.github.com/2016-11-29-git-2-11-has-been-
release...](https://blog.github.com/2016-11-29-git-2-11-has-been-released/)
[2]: [https://blog.github.com/2017-05-10-git-2-13-has-been-
release...](https://blog.github.com/2017-05-10-git-2-13-has-been-released/)

~~~
jcl
I don't know... While the title might give that impression, the opening
paragraph seems pretty up-front about distinguishing "the open source Git
project" from GitHub ("here's our look..."). They don't even mention their
not-insignificant contributions to the project, nor do they say things like
"we added [x]", even though they legitimately might be able to in some cases.

And, given their line of work, it would be kind of surprising if the GitHub
blog _didn 't_ cover recent Git developments.

~~~
paradite
Out of curiosity, would you be surprised by:

\- Git 2.17 is now available (gitlab.com)

\- Git 2.17 is now available (bitbucket.com)

The point is, by publishing this kind of posts, Github is making you associate
git with Github. Anecdote example: my university lecturer calls Github APIs
"git APIs". While that might not be a bad thing, it blurs the boundary between
an open source project and a company.

I can already imagine Github having influence on the direction of git project
and becomes the de facto owner, and the impact on its competitors and the
repository hosting industry. The equivalence would be Microsoft, instead of
owning TypeScript, owns the ECMAScript specification.

~~~
sytse
I think GitHub has done a great job being a good steward of the git project.
They welcomed us (GitLab) to events like git merge. Because they made git
popular people are sometimes confused about the difference between git and
GitHub. But GitHub has done a great job on not muddling the water themselves.

~~~
paradite
Okay. I guess if you say so then I was just being paranoid and overreacting.

~~~
sytse
I'm not saying that, just giving our point of view. BTW I still meet a lot of
people that think GitHub is open source instead of them hosting open source.

~~~
Nadya
Which was one of the top 3 reasons I chose to host my projects on GitLab
instead of GitHub. Thank you for supporting OSS by being OSS yourself!

~~~
sytse
You're welcome. Thanks for using GitLab. BTW We refer to ourselves as an open
core company since we also sell proprietary features.

------
avar
I just wanted to add as another Git developer (with patches in this release
and others) and with no affiliation with GitHub, that this skepticism of their
motives that's taking up 1/2 the comments here is entirely unwarranted.

I think it's also much better for a general audience like HN to link to these
summary posts made by GitHub, Bitbucket and others than to the official
release notes.

The official release notes are quite terse, and much too long for someone who
just wants a quick summary without getting into all the obscure details.
They're also mostly ordered in whatever order Junio happened to integrate the
patches, not by some order of importance or user-visibility. They also never
show practical examples of how the feature can be used.

------
pjungwir
The --color-moved feature sounds really nice!

Something I've seen in Github but not in Git is how in a red/green line, the
individual changed characters are a brighter red/green than the rest. Is it
possible to get that in CLUI git?

Here is a workflow I use often that I'm amazed isn't supported on Github:
First I run `git log path/to/file` to see the commits for just that file. Then
in a separate window I start copy/pasting SHAs to see the whole file at each
commit: `git show abc123:path/to/file` ... `git show def456:path/tofile` ...
etc. It's a little tedious, but it can really help to see what's going on.

It would be so much easier to do this in a browser with links and a
back/forward button! In Github I can see the history of a single file, e.g. at
[https://github.com/pjungwir/topiary/commits/master/lib/topia...](https://github.com/pjungwir/topiary/commits/master/lib/topiary/node.rb)
But from there I can't see that file at each commit. (Instead there are two
links that both show me the commit's full diff, and another link back to the
root of the repo.) I wish there were an easy way I could just browse forward
and back, keeping the current file! Am I missing something?

~~~
peff
Try the diff-highlight script which can be found at:

[https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/contrib/diff-
highligh...](https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/contrib/diff-highlight)

------
ernesth
Please use the original announcement
[https://marc.info/?l=git&m=152270220826214&w=2](https://marc.info/?l=git&m=152270220826214&w=2)
(or change the title to something else such as "Some interesting new features
of git 2.17")

~~~
rehemiau
To be fair, the original announcement you linked is unreadable.

~~~
jwilk
Slightly more readable copy (from the official archive):

[https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqq6059z9kz.fsf@gitster-
ct.c.g...](https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqq6059z9kz.fsf@gitster-
ct.c.googlers.com/)

------
jwilk
Please use the original title.

~~~
jwilk
I see it's been updated. Thanks!

------
joejoebob
Warning for anyone using Git 2.17 on Windows with Jenkins

[https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-50573](https://issues.jenkins-
ci.org/browse/JENKINS-50573)

------
Froyoh
I'll never be able to remember all of these new flags they add in. Too bad all
these nifty features are all "opt-in".

~~~
Crespyl
With git it's usually possible to set your config file to enable a given
feature by default, unless you override it with a flag.

The `--color-moved` one for example can be toggled on with `git config
--global diff.colorMoved default`.

------
hummingn3rd
Thanks for the article, I've just learned many options I didn't know !

