If you want to read what I’m writing, you can read all of my articles on OmniNerd.  I’m not sure if I’ll be putting much on markmcb.com anytime soon.  But then again, I change my mind a lot.

1. Initial setup

Since there’s overhead associated with markItUp!, I set a variable @content_submission to true so that my standard layout template can skip all of the extra javascript when it’s not necessary. To keep things simple, I’m going to follow the markItUp! hierarchy, which means it’s stylesheets will be in your javascripts path.

Install jQuery into your javascripts folder along with markItUp!. Download whatever markItUp! set you want to use (I’m using textile above, which assumes you’ve already ran sudo gem install redcloth) and drop that in the sets folder. All of this is documented in the standard markItUp! docs.

You only need to make one edit to the standard markItUp! file. In jquery.markitup.js, edit previewTemplatePath to the following:

2. Add an action to parse the text

I’ve got a controller called content_controller that will handle my Textile processing with Redcloth. I’ve defined an action as follows:

You may want to add more to this action to provide security.

3. Add a route to for your new action

Assuming you’re using RESTful routes, just modify your existing route:

4. Tell markItUp! about your route

Lastly, edit your set file and tell it about the route:

Only one thing to note: you must have diff installed. I’m using: diff (GNU diffutils) 2.8.1.

If you fire up RAILS_ROOT/script/console and paste that code in, it will return a nicely marked up string like this:

Use CSS to make your ins and del tags render however you like.

$ ruby find-frequent-clients.rb \
--apache-access-log=/path/to/your/log \
--seconds=3600 \
--request-limit=7200 \
--log-time-zone=PST

That command is going to find any client IPs that are hitting my web server in the last 10 minutes more twice or more per second. The output will be a line separated list of IP addressess (optionally with a hit count if --show-count=1 is added). Here’s how it works:

Note: This makes the assumption that your logs are in the format: aa.bb.cc.dd - - [datetime]

Let’s start with a few assumptions for the scenarios we’ll walk through:

• you’re one of many developers for a project
• all changes going into production must first be peer-reviewed
• you all use simple GUI text editors like TextMate or an equivalent
• you have 4 features that you’re working that are due soon

Let’s get to work.

Endless, Easy, Non-File-System-Based, Local Branches

You’d like to work on each of your 4 features A, B, C, and D independently and somewhat in parallel, though B looks like a quick win.  Let’s compare the branching features offered by both Git and Subversion side-by-side as we get going:

Note the key advantages Git offered in each step:

1. Git creates a full repository with this command.  With Subversion, you’re just checking out the files in the repository.
2. With each branch, no new files are created in the project file hierarchy on your system.  Since you have a full local repository, Git creates the files you need on the fly by processing the recorded changes.  With Subversion, you have to create every branch remotely on the server.  This can get messy depending on the size of your team.  If you decide to control branching to keep things clean, you forfeit the power branching offers.
3. With Git, we only push our work to the server AFTER collaboration (more below).  With Subversion, it all hits the server.
4. Again, no file system work.  Since we’re using a local repository, we let Git handle the details of removing the branch.  With Subversion, you still have the old copy until you update.  You either have to clean up manually, or “update” to clean up local and remote copies.

In addition, try to do this scenario on your laptop while not connected to the Internet.  With Git, no issues, the repository is local; however, with Subversion, you’re out of luck.  Your new branches will have to wait. The advantages of Git for branching are clear in this simple branching scenario.  Let’s continue to look at our scenario with non-trivial features A, C, and D that we’re working on.

Stashing Temporary Work

You start working on A and you’re about 100 lines of code into it when you get stumped on a math function.  The math wiz on your team is out for the day and you’d rather not continue until you consult him.  You’ve got some ideas for C, so you decide shift gears and get started.

At a glance, you might get the impression that Subversion is simpler, and you’re probably right.  However, this is one case where simple may not be what you’re looking for.  Let’s look at each step:

1. The key thing to note in this and every step is how we switch between branches.  In Git, the repository handles this. With Subversion, you’re literally just working on a separate set of files.  Ultimately, it’s up to you to manage retrieving and editing these files.  If you’re using TextMate, you’ll probably save a TextMate project file every time you branch simply to give you quick access to the branch.  If you branch a lot, this quickly becomes annoying, time consuming, and non-productive.  With Git, when you checkout a separate branch, it “magically” changes all of the files on your file system for you.  That means 1 project file is all you ever need.  Git handles the rest.
2. Git will “float” uncommitted changes.  This means that if simply did a “git checkout C,” you’d bring with you all of the uncommitted work you did for A.  However, you don’t want to commit A because it’s not in a good working state.  Instead, you “stash” your work.  Stash is like a work in process commit.  Using it will tuck away your WIP changes without a formal commit, which allows you to change to C without “floating” any of your A changes.  The Subversion method is simpler, but you could potentially end up with several half-baked branches and no record of when you abandoned them.  Git’s stash allows you to list all stashes, and even write a message when you stash.  It is far more powerful in this scenario.
3. Same as 2, but shows the “git stash list” feature.

So now we can work smoothly between multiple branches without worry of the consequences of interruption.  Git thus far has shown immense strength in two key areas, but let’s revisit collaboration to seal the deal.

Collaboration Before Public Commits

It’s now weeks later and you’re working on D.  After some round table discussions with the team, you all agree that D may not be the best approach.  A co-worker starts working on his own branch E and a few days later wants to review it with you.

Git offers power by putting collaboration up front before commits are public for all to see.  Consider in each step:

1. Git has a nice feature to create “patches.”  They are simply changes to code, very similar to a diff.  The idea is that you create patches from commits you’ve only made on your local copy of the repository.  When your co-worker sent you the patch for E, no one else on the team had to see his commit logs, branches, etc., in the public repository because they never existed there.  You are collaborating about E via emailed patches.  With Subversion, it’s all on the server, all the time.
2. With Git, deleting an abandoned branch is simple and clean.  The work done in D will never be seen by the public, i.e., your team.  You’ve spared the team clutter both in the logs and on their file systems.  With Subversion, the clean up is on you.  Should you forget to delete D, it’s has the potential to get used and that could be bad.  Conversely, someone else may have quietly checked out D and been working on something.  When you delete it from the public repository, their commit will surely fail.

Conclusion

There are literally hundreds of features for both Git and Subversion.  While you may have detailed reasons to choose one over the other, I think these 3 high level reasons are strongly convincing in favor of Git.  If you have differing opinions, I’d love to hear them.

For example, if your application controller defines a filter to check if a user is logged in, it makes sense that this filter might run for all controllers, except in rare cases.  In my case, I have a dynamic image controller that doesn’t require all of the overhead that most controllers do.  For that controller, I use the above to skip all of the filters.

A comedy group I’ve gotten into recently has a show called Backpack Picnic that can be found on the ON Networks site. If you’re looking for something new/funny/smart, check them out.

My favorite episode so far is called “Farmer Dinner,” in which a genius farmer son named “Ma jr.” argues with his farmer dad about the physical definition of work until they’re interrupted by “Pa jr.” who has just returned from returned from his new life as a fisherman. What could be funnier than that?

• Remote repository has two branches: master and some-long-complex-name
• Locally, I have cloned master
• I have set up my config to refer to the remote master as “origin”
• I have checked out some-long-complex-name using the following:

$ git checkout --track -b simple-name origin/some-long-complex-name

The key thing to note is that my local branch has a different name than the remote branch, i.e., “simple-name” is my local branch that’s tracking the remote branch “some-long-complex-name”.  I’ve used pseudo-branch-names in this example, but in practice I like my local branch names to be 3 characters or so such that they’re easy to type, and I like the remote branches to have long names such that there is no ambiguity about what they are.

My initial .git/config looked like this after the aforementioned checkout command:

[remote "origin"]
        url = ssh://myserv/srv/git/proj.git
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/master
[branch "simple-name"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/some-long-complex-name

Now, this isn’t too bad.  All pull related commands work, but push only works for the master branch.  What I wanted was git to push to “some-long-complex-name” whenever I ran “git push” from my local “simple-name” branch.

I changed .git/config to look like this:

[remote "origin"]
    url = ssh://myserv/srv/git/proj.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
        remote = origin
[remote "simple_origin"]
        url = ssh://myserv/srv/git/proj.git
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
        push = simple-name:some-long-complex-name
[branch "simple-name"]
        remote = simple_origin
        merge = refs/heads/some-long-complex-name

Note the additional “remote” section and the “push” reference.  Now, when I’m in my simple-name branch, I can just type “git push” and this branch will push out to the remote branch names “some-long-complex-name”.

Thanks to those who offered help on the freenode IRC #git channel, namely RandalSchwartz.

I like the Internet. I like web sites. I spend significant hours of my life with my computer. (I view it as my slave, forced to do my hardest work. But that’s another post.) Despite all of my time and interest, I don’t get the social networking fanatics. I saw an iReport video on CNN about some kids trying to petition the new style and layout on Facebook and I couldn’t help but think, “what?” (Seriously, watch it.)

Is it just me, or were you thinking, “college student?” when that second guy came on? And what about the first kid? He seems like he should be joking, but he’s not. Best of all is when they start talking about the attention the college kid has now with his group. The college kids says it’s annoying because people disagree with him. Ah, a good ol’ dose of reality. Some advise for this kid: when you protest a $15B company’s actions, don’t expect it to be easy. You might actual have to *gasp* work to get what you want if you feel it’s that important.

On the flipside, I hope it works out for him. I hate the new Facebook layout too.

• it’s available via yum with Fedora
• it provides up-to-date diff information
• it’s part of the overall Git package, so it’s tightly integrated

Installation was ultimately quite simple, but I found the install docs to be less than helpful for people like me who want immediate functionality and will get to the tweaks and details later.

Step 1: Install Gitweb

sudo yum install gitweb

This will install a few files at /var/www/git.  You shouldn’t need to do anything to them.

Step 2: Create /etc/gitweb.conf

You need a configuration file to tell Gitweb where to look for your project.  You can change this folder to wherever your project will be.

$ echo "\$projectroot = '/srv/git/';" > /etc/gitweb.conf

Step 3: Edit Apache Configuration File

This configuration file assumes you are running your site as a virtual host.

Step 3: Tweak Your Repository’s Config File

Gitweb lists two key elements at the start of your project’s page: description and owner.  To have these display something appropriate, edit /srv/git/yourproject/.git/description:

My Awesome Project

… and add this to /srv/git/yourproject/.git/config:

[gitweb]
        owner = "Mark McBride"

Step 4: Restart Apache

That’s it.  Just restart Apache and you should find Gitweb running at the domain you’ve specified.

References:

• Phil Sergi, http://www.philsergi.com/2008/04/gitweb-apache-gentoo.html
• Gitweb Wiki, http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/Gitweb