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Comment by godzillabrennus | Hacker News Reader

Let me fix the marketing for you:

GitHub desktop is designed for our non Linux users. We felt like you weren't comfortable with a command line so we targeted you. Minimum system requirements quad core CPU and 32GB of ram.

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I for one always do my commiting and pull requests in the github app despite being able to use the command line. I love the way it shows me what’s changed, provides a nicer UI around selective commits (I prefer many small logically atomic commits), and then allows me to create a PR from inside (which the git client doesn’t). It’s also a nice way to view history and jump around in diffs.

Not sure why you’d bash it — the git cli is far from perfect and I for one welcome other perspectives on solving collaboration.

Now changing it to electron is another matter... I only have so much ram guys! With slack, Spotify, vscode, and a browser open on the same machine I’m screwed!

Making Git more accessible to non-developers (or people not comfortable with a command line) isn't some horrible thing like you're making it out to be.

I think they're more upset that it's on Electron.

Serious question...what use is git to a non-developer? I don't think I've ever used it for anything but code. You're not supposed to use it with huge files, so that kind of eliminates the one case I was thinking of (graphic design versioning).

Also if someone is a developer, they're only hurting themselves by not making an effort to get comfortable with the command line. Like half of my workflow wouldn't be possible without a familiarity with it.

Git-LFS lets you use it with large files, and even without Git-LFS you can still use it for smaller projects (it's not efficient at all, but for small teams and small projects you can do it).

Github is making a play to be the "Git for Everyone people". Note they call out that the new client has image diffs (great for... graphic design versioning).

They're forming a brand that could eventually compete with stuff like Perforce on a smaller scale with designers and artists if they can make them feel at home using "GitHub" (Git + creature comforts from GitHub).

And to the developer point, everyone starts somewhere. As a kid Git didn't click until I started using visual clients. And "the command line" is a huge surface to get comfortable with.

Out of curiosity I've downloaded the app and tried it, because everyone seemed to hate it. Bloated, slow, eats RAM like crazy they said. Everybody says it so it must be true, right?

No. I was expecting a disaster and instead I got a nice little Git client (not really feature packed, but the advertised features worked as expected). It starts quite quickly (compared to GitKraken for instance which takes ~10 seconds on my machine). UI is very responsive. After few minutes of usage ate 120 MB of RAM which is less than Sublime Text which I also had running in the background (and compared to more than 500 MB used by Slack, also an Electron app). At idle it uses almost 0% CPU.

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed. I was under impression that HN was better than that - issuing judgements before actually trying the bloody app.

Edit: To clarify - I am using version 1.0.0, on macOS 10.12.

A lot of people HAVE tried the app. It's extremely noticeable and inferior in regards to UI performance. The 4GB comment also isn't an exaggeration if an electron app is left on for all day (slack, etc)

(copied my response from another thread)

I left it running when I first wrote the comment. Went back to it just now, after nearly two hours, and the memory usage didn't increase. Still at 120-130 MB.

My guess is that compared to Slack, Github app doesn't really do much when idle. Slack fetches user statuses, new messages, notifications and so on. When you have an open channel with ongoing conversations that will add up in the RAM. This app doesn't seem to do anything when idle, so the RAM usage doesn't increase.

Snarky comments like this really have no place here.

How did an unhelpful and unprofessional comment float to the top of this thread in HN today?

This is NOT an acceptable standard of comments here on HN. Not everyone has to be a power user. Using a GUI app over CLI is not a big deal.

Quit trying to "fix the marketing" with your snarky comments.

Did you even try it? Looks great and sits idle at 0% CPU and 55MB. As for the GUI, many people prefer it, myself included.

Are you sure you're not using the old native client?

I just installed the new client and it's using 421mb of RAM. You are right that it's idling at zero cpu though.

I think you missed the additional "Github Desktop Helper" processes that every Electron app spins up. In my case, the app eats 190MB just being there...without even adding a repo or authenticating a user.

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