Improving the GitHub Workflow for the Microsoft Community
github.com
github.com
Because Visual Studio already has very good integration with git. I probably only use git from the command line once every couple of months.
A IDE is for writing code not integrating all kind of crap into it......
The "I" in IDE stands for integrated
But since you mention it it'd make a lot of sense for Microsoft to want to buy Github.
Microsoft has been doing a lot of cool stuff engineering-wise in recent years. They've released so many FOSS projects I've lost track[0]. But they still suffer from a problem of being "uncool" because of their past reputation. Which was deserved, but they've changed a lot[1]. Microsoft needs a new brand for their FOSS work, because the Microsoft brand is badly tainted in the FOSS world.
Github is one of the few companies that could earn them respect in the FOSS world if they were to acquire them (and of course, not screw everything up).
[0] Heck, I've literally lost track of the number of FOSS things they've released this week
[1] Fifteen years ago, could you imagine Microsoft hosting a launch party for Debian? Because that's what they did this last weekend: http://openness.microsoft.com/blog/2015/04/21/microsoft-debi...
You don't become cool by buying the cool new gadget-of-the-week just as you don't become cool by buying a cool company.
Ill be comfortable calling them cool when they've demonstrated they no longer follow Embrace Extend Extinguish but until then they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
As far as I'm concerned they realized they tried to move to fast into the extinguishing phase so they're taking a step back into the extend phase. Im not falling for it.
I'm not saying that Microsoft doesn't still have this intention to some degree. It's impossible to prove a negative, especially for such a large and fragmented company.
But it's inconsistent that Microsoft still receives so much hate for having practice this a decade ago, when there are companies that are literally doing it today, in the plain light of day, in very large ways, and receiving far less criticism than Microsoft does.
I say all this as a Linux user typing in Iceweasel from a Debian machine that has no non-free software on it except the wifi driver. I have no love for Microsoft or proprietary software, but they still receive so much criticism that it crowds out criticism of other companies that are just as bad today (or even worse) compared to Microsoft today.
They receive far less criticism these days than they have historically. Microsoft hatred in the Linux community is largely considered immature and/or anachronistic, and there is a ton of praise for what Microsoft has been doing with their research division and the service pivot they've been doing as of more recent.
Which other companies are you referring to? Apple? Google? Those get tons of criticism.
The API spec is available here: https://github.com/github/git-lfs/blob/master/docs/api.md
There's a reference implementation here: https://github.com/github/lfs-test-server
Being cool is overrated, anyway. FOSS is cool now because it's incredibly useful to people--and by that I mean inexpensive and flexible, not just powerful. Microsoft will be cool again when they to make the most useful stuff.
They seem to be turning the corner on that, but reputation often lags reality by quite a bit. I mean, people still think of Apple as the "Think Different" company, even though their latest initiative is $17,000 gold watches for the nouveau riche. And people still think of Google as an open information company, despite their repeated neglect and killing of tools for openly managing information (Google Groups, Reader, etc.).
The "new" Microsoft is a lot better than the old Microsoft, but it's still not a company I feel comfortable doing business with.
OTOH, MS Research was always very cool (and they started contributing to e.g. OpenBSD many years ago), OS kernel has always been much better than a glance over win32 API shows you, and Office365 is definitely world-class.
I suspect that the engineering culture in MS has always been rather good (with engineers like you and me, and many of them a good deal better); the radical transformation is probably mostly within the top management.
Actually, I think there should be a law for making OS kernels replaceable and separate from UI shells. I have to use Windows as certain software and drivers are not available/performant enough under Linux, so I have to deal with the crazy Windows 8.1 UX.
Also it's trivial to replace the UI. Minus the 5 billion dollars in R&D of course. But it's just one registry key if you want to get started on it...
My no-stalgia: It was an overengineered beast at the time, with an original grand vision that wasn't performing well enough, and seemed to be fixed with duct tape.
The Video Driver + GDI, originally conceived to be outside the kernel, was too slow - so it was moved back in, causing a lot of problems.
The IO subsystem was nicely abstracted with IRPs. Except it was too slow, so they added the "FastPath" interface, which fixed the speed but made it impossible to safely unload or stack drivers. IIRC, they were the main reason for the "PlugFest" parties, where microsoft would invite vendors to come to place and then install their drivers in random orders and to debug the collisions -- the fact that microsoft needed to organize these parties is an indication of how bad it was.
The POSIX subsystem was removed in XP/Server 2002. Perhaps you mean SFU? That was discontinued in 2004. Oh, you mean SUA (nee Interix). Well, that was removed in 8.1.
And your experience might be different, but "incredibly performant" is quite the opposite of my experience with the POSIX subsystem.
And they've been trying to remove it since that political requirement was off the table. Except it turns out that it was actually in used by some customers, so they keep bringing subsets back.
Forgive me, but what is the advantage of buying Github enterprise and then having it hosted in Azure? I was under the impression that most enterprise customers were interested in self hosting.
Influencing factors can be regulatory, policy, SLA, that sort of thing. A prior employer had a blanket policy against intellectual property in a public service no matter the security, for example. GitHub has reliability issues lately as well.
One practical thing I've heard is that it's really easy to accidentally make a repo public on GitHub (I agree).
With hosted Github you have no choice - data will presumably live on mainland US. With Azure/AWS/whatever, you can host your data in the most suitable location (always worth checking the contracts though)
"Self hosting" increasingly means "inside my hacked-together cloud, not yours"