JS-Git Needs Your Help | Hacker News Reader

JS-Git Needs Your Help

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16 pointscreationix6 comments

I'm implementing git in JavaScript to bring more independence to developers on more devices. This will enable more apps to have distributed data that works fully offline and doesn't require cloud services to work.

One benefit of this as mentioned in the fundraiser text is to build developer environments for kids.

But another benefit that's less obvious and very relevant to this week's news is it moves power back into the hands of the users of software. Much of software has been moving to the cloud in recent years and most new devices can only work with cloud data. You can't even log into a chromebook, surface, android tablet, or iPad without registering with some online service and giving them your personal details.

If you want to write some software on these devices you have to use the device like a thin-client and be at the mercy of your internet connection and some cloud service (like online IDEs). The platforms, for the most part, don't allow much local work to be done.

They do all allow JavaScript and have some form of network connection and persistent storage. By implementing git in pure javascript we'll be able to build tools that work completely offline, peer-to-peer or, if desired, with cloud based systems. I believe the owner of the hardware and software, the author of the code, should decide how and where it gets distributed.

But I need funding to complete this project. I have a house, a wife and 3 kids to take care of. I've quit my paying work so that I can make time to finish js-git. It's getting close, but I need just a little more time to finish it to be something useful.

If you care about giving control back to the user or believe in enabling kids and think this is a useful way to accomplish this, please back me and/or spread the word.

There was an implementation of git in javascript a few years ago; it withered on the vine (I've been trying to salvage the code for an in-browser distributed sync thingy, but it's pretty crufty). Why should we expect anything different to happen with this one?

There are several failed attempts. Most of them died because they were just side-projects and/or programmed in a monolithic manner and crumbled under their own weight. The two main devs on js-git are myself and Chris Dickinson. I'm working on it full time so it can have the attention it needs (hence the fundraiser) and Chris has a couple of failed attempts in the past and knows what bad areas to avoid.

There is nothing wrong with JavaScript itself that makes this infeasible.

why did it die? are there inherent problems with javascript that might make this infeasible, or did the project just fizzle?

How do you intend to handle the limits of LocalStorage size? 5MB is not enough to hold much git history and associated files.

There are many other ways to store data locally that vary by platform. They range from full filesystem access in node.js to html5 fs apis in modern browsers and chrome apps. Winfs has it's own APIs ported over from C#, Firefox os has fs. Also there is IndexDB in most browsers. LocalStorage is probably the only thing I'm not going to try to use.

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