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GitHub Desktop Launches To Replace Mac and Windows Apps 167

An anonymous reader writes: GitHub today launched a unified desktop version for Mac and Windows — you can download it from desktop.github.com. GitHub Desktop will automatically replace the previous Mac and Windows apps and can be used alongside GitHub Enterprise. Venturebeat reports: "...GitHub was tired of the differences between its two apps and decided it was time to align them. The hope is that if Mac and Windows users have the same workflow, it will be easier for them to work together (and for individual users to switch between the two platforms)."
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GitHub Desktop Launches To Replace Mac and Windows Apps

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  • Missed opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fnj ( 64210 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @07:35PM (#50305799)

    They could have just used Qt and made it really portable - Windows, OSX, linux, BSD, ...

    • by Anonymous Coward

      eh, what's wrong with command line git?

      • If you have to ask that question, either you have never used git on the command line, or you should be permanently banned from ever designing user interfaces.
      • by KGIII ( 973947 )

        I was kind of disappointed with GitHub when they turned a neutral platform into a political statement recently. I did not have any code up there yet so I did not have to take anything down. I think I will just host my own git, do a domain and point it at one of my IP addresses. My ISP is cool like that.

    • Yeah, it could suck equally well on more platforms.

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      QT might be a good choice if the app is to be written in C++. But there is probably no reason to write in C++ unless the app has some speed / performance / memory critical requirement that can't be done another way. And portability of code is only half the story if the code has to be compiled and packaged for each platform.

      A better choice would be Java which is already used for a large number of cross platform dev tools like IntelliJ, Eclipse, SmartGit and so on. Most of the code would be inherently cros

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        My main issue with the old client was the long time it took to open the app. The new one is better but still seems to be fairly slow, all things considered.

    • by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday August 13, 2015 @02:31AM (#50307213) Journal
      Qt is a great way of writing Mac applications if your goal is to piss off your users. If you want an app that looks sort-of vaguely like a Mac app and doesn't behave at all like one, then use Qt.
      • Qt is a great way of writing Mac applications if your goal is to piss off your users. If you want an app that looks sort-of vaguely like a Mac app and doesn't behave at all like one, then use Qt.

        Pissing off Mac users is a feature, not a bug.

    • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      why do you think they didn't write it in qt?

      but with github client you can get an easy installation of a command line git kept up to date.

      iirc windows was written in qt anyways before, but it tried to mimic windows 8 look. many confusing things. accept buttons as save, or back etc.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @07:36PM (#50305809)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • At least, they try.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yep For example Firefox and Chrome they both suck so hard.....

      • by forand ( 530402 )
        I am pretty sure there is no 3rd party interpretive layer in either Firefox nor Chrome. They are native apps.
        • LOL! Firefox and Chrome ARE "interpretive layers!"

        • by DrXym ( 126579 )
          90%+ of the code in Firefox is cross platform. Native platform functionality such as rendering, widgets, theming, event model, drag & drop etc. is pushed behind interfaces and there are cross platform APIs for strings, file / network IO, threads etc. So in general higher level code doesn't really care what platform its running on although there are some exceptions. Most of the code that lives above the engine isn't written in C++ at all - it's Javascript, XML and CSS so it's almost entirely cross platfo
      • Re:Big Mistake. (Score:4, Informative)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday August 13, 2015 @02:33AM (#50307219) Journal
        The Chrome UI sucks on OS X, as does the lack of Keychain integration. You can fix the latter in Firefox with a plugin, but its UI is also decidedly non-native (thought a lot better than it was even 5 years ago).
    • There's not a lot of obvious information there regarding this release. What I want to know is - are we talking about one app that's dependent on some framework like Java (please, no), or are we still talking about two separate apps where the developers are planning to coordinate design, additions, and the like?

      • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        Their Atom text editor is built on top of Chromium/HTML 5/Javascript and whatever else web 2.0 stuff they could cram in there, it's not a huge stretch of the imagination that this app is built on top of that. Nobody builds projects from scratch in Java anymore (except, perhaps Cisco)

        • by DrXym ( 126579 )
          Nobody has to build projects from scratch even if they use Java either. e.g. lots of applications make use of the Eclipse RCP to knock together sophisticated IDEs and other tools of their own. Even if you were starting from scratch, it's very easy to use an editor create dialogs and frames with content.

          I should say that Electron (under Atom) is no panacea. It's essentially a shell - an empty browser window that hosts your application's content and provides some objects that you can call in JS for creating

      • by Shados ( 741919 )

        It's probably built on top of Electron Shell, like Atom. If that's the case, their slogant (start contributing NATIVELY) is a little misleading.

        That said, Electron Shell is getting pretty good, and apps built on top of it (like Atom), are getting pretty nice too.

      • Looks like the Mac version is pretty close to a normal Mac app. The frameworks include ReactiveCocoa, Swift, Rebel, TwUI. I don't see anything visible that points to a cross-platform dev framework: if it's there, there's still plenty of platform-specific thinking in there.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Not always true. Rstudio is available on multiple platforms, and it is pretty good on all of them. It is the dominant desktop IDE for R on all of its supported platforms. The key is to use the right level of abstraction. Rstudio is essentially a web app, and its desktop versions are essentially a thin Qt wrapper around it.

    • by donaldm ( 919619 )

      Anytime you make a cross-platform app, you end up with suckage everywhere. Go native or go home.

      -jcr

      That is rubbish. You can develop for multiple platforms and OS's if you have good management and Q & A. Unfortunately many developers that target their applications for multiple platforms don't seem to know how to cross develop properly and that is mainly due to poor management.

    • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      Anytime you make a cross-platform app, you end up with suckage everywhere. Go native or go home.

      Au contraire -- my "hello world" kicks ass on every platform.

  • CoC (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @07:46PM (#50305855)
    A story about this but not the racist Code of Conduct they're trying to shove down everyone's throats?
    • by radish ( 98371 )

      I know I'm going to regret asking this, but how exactly is the open coc racist?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:

        ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’
        Reasonable communication of boundaries, such as “leave me alone,” “go away,” or “I’m not discussing this with you”

        • Re:CoC (Score:5, Insightful)

          by agm ( 467017 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @10:44PM (#50306595)

          There's no such thing as "reverse racism" and "reverse sexism". Racism is racism, and sexism is sexism.

        • I wonder if some adherents of Abrahamic religions consider it religiously offensive to be asked to treat homosexuality as normal.

          How does GitHub's CoC reconcile seemingly conflicting goals such as this?

          • Seems pretty simple to me. They "prioritize[] marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort."

            In other words, you're (or the people you're talking about) privileged, so fuck off.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            No religious privilege, so no allowances for treating homosexuality as not normal. What makes you think that there is a conflict here?

            • No religious privilege, so no allowances for treating homosexuality as not normal. What makes you think that there is a conflict here?

              This part, regarding their definition of proscribed "harassment":

              Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, race, age, regional discrimination, political or religious affiliation

              To some Christians, saying "I'm gay" is offensive, because they hear it as a statement that homosexuality is an attribute of a person, rather than merely a chosen behavior.

              To some Muslims, saying "I was born in a Muslim village, but I personally am a Christian." is so offensive that they feel compelled to kill you.

              My point is that different people can (and do) feel offended by radically different things, and I think the CoC is misguided if it

              • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, race, age, regional discrimination, political or religious affiliation

                To some Christians, saying "I'm gay" is offensive, because they hear it as a statement that homosexuality is an attribute of a person, rather than merely a chosen behavior.

                (emphasis mine)

                It says insulting people because of their religious affiliation is unacceptable. It doesn't protect the religious from being offended because of their views, it merely says people should not insult them based on their choice of religion.

                You misunderstood it, there is no conflict here.

                • I think you make a good point regarding the Christians. But I believe my main point is still valid w.r.t. the Mulsims, depending on how you read the CoC wording.

                  If the Muslim example I gave is realistic for even some Muslims, then it's offensive to those current Muslims for someone else to state the he/she is a former Muslim.

                  In that example, the offense isn't because the former Muslim said something about the current Muslim's religious affiliation; he/she said it about his/her own religious history. The m

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Seems like a reasonable list, in fact many of them are things that even MRAs claim to want (e.g. the freedom to communicate without being censored for perceived slights, respecting clear requests to end communication).

          As for the "reverse racism" thing, that's only a thing if you don't understand what racism is. In order for something to be racist, it has to be detrimental to one race. Merely doing something that attempts to help, say, white people is not racist to all other racists. It's identifying a probl

          • As for the "reverse racism" thing, that's only a thing if you don't understand what racism is.

            No, the problem there is that "reverse racism" already has a meaning, and that meaning is when someone racially disadvantage is racist against people who are racially advantaged. Which then prompts the statement "there is no such thing as racism, only racism" which is true. All racism is racism. Yes, it is fundamentally different when it is pervasive, when you're getting the down side of it, etc. But racism is still racism.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Racism is racism. Reverse racism is something different, and gets brought up every time anyone tries to day anything to help one particular group. You see it on every single Slashdot article about minorities or women in CS, for example. For example, any attempt to run a class in introductory CS for girls is branded sexist, despite the fact that it does not disadvantage boys in any way.

              The definition does seem to have changed a little over the years, but that's what it currently seems to refer to.

            • The way you are using terms like "racially advantaged" and "racially disadvantaged" it seems you wouldn't have to look beyond the mirror to see an example of a racist.

              Which then prompts the statement "there is no such thing as racism, only racism" which is true. All racism is racism.

              I think that says it all ... as in, WTF?

              • Huh? Obviously, this refers to the fact that people of the "white" race have a lot of social and financial advantages over people of the "black" race. It's simply a recognition of reality.

                A claim that whites should have it better than blacks would be racist. A claim that there is no such thing as social advantages and disadvantages for being of whatever race would be de facto racist, since it would imply that blacks are inherently inferior.

        • by euroq ( 1818100 )

          Racism = prejudice + power, not just prejudice towards other races. You can't have racism without power over someone; if you don't have that, you just have prejudice and stereotypes.

          When they refer to "reversisms", it's reasonable to infer they are referring to the idea that "this is sexist towards men" or towards straight people, etc., doesn't meet their criteria for getting involved, because it's not at the level of real racism or real sexism, which involves real marginalism and not the internet version o

      • Re:CoC (Score:5, Informative)

        by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki&gmail,com> on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @09:02PM (#50306203) Homepage

        Progressive stack or "the more xyz you are down the scale, the more your opinions count." [matthewhopkinsnews.com] Whites are at the top according to that, so your opinion counts for zero. And you can't forget the part in their CoC that states they won't go after any form of reverse racism, cisphobia(actual word used or in a common word 'hetrosexual'), sexism against particular groups of people and so on.

        Github has turned to shit ever since they tossed meritocracy out the window. [readwrite.com]

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Gwark!!! Gnaggle-Gnobblers!! Privilege white cis hetro male shitlord neckbeard NERDS!!! Meritocracy is sexist! Your opinions are miroagressive and rape. Slashdot needs to adopt a CoC to stop this harassment. Please, donate to my Patreon and join me in bullying enough geeks into submission so we can make the world a better place.

        • Wow, the Code of Conduct is so hilariously terrible. Talk about regression.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Cisphobia is not the same thing as being heterosexual. The former relates to currently being the same gender you were born as, the latter relates to your sexual orientation. Cisphobia is an irrational fear or hatred of transgender people.

          Your link is to a blog by someone describing themselves as the "witchfinder general", and has flames in the background. Like you, he doesn't seem to understand some of the basic terms involved. For example, "reverse racism" is the claim that, say, a programme aimed at helpi

          • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            In otherwords, the content of his article is correct and you're feeling butthurt over it.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I can't debate with you if you can't read, sorry.

              • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                That's alright, most people don't debate with someone who takes somethings so far out of meaningful context that it changes the entire premise of what was originally written. I did like your use of weasel words to try and paint a different picture, but maybe it's because I'm old that I simply don't give a shit and am tired of it.

    • Do you go around touring sausage factories too?

  • by Sowelu ( 713889 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @08:06PM (#50305933)

    "GitHub Desktop works for projects hosted on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise. If you’re already using a GitHub app, you should be upgraded to the new version automatically."

    God damn it.

  • Fork me on GitHub (Score:3, Insightful)

    by diamondmagic ( 877411 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @08:12PM (#50305951) Homepage

    This looks OK, at least compared to the Windows version, but... where can I fork it?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Was there no story about the SJW code of conduct or did I miss it?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      This code of conduct outlines our expectations for participants within the [COMMUNITY] community, as well as steps to reporting unacceptable behavior. We are committed to providing a welcoming and inspiring community for all and expect our code of conduct to be honored. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be banned from the community.

      Our open source community strives to:

      Be friendly and patient.
      Be welcoming: We strive to be a community that w

      • by c4757p ( 4213341 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @08:38PM (#50306103)

        Not just "white male discrimination", rather a whole lot of eyeroll-worthy rules designed to make everybody always afraid of offending someone else...

        Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

        [snip]

        Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like "hug" or "backrub") without consent or after a request to stop

        ...so the last time I action-messaged somebody "/me hugs $NICK" on IRC as a tongue-in-cheek expression of cheerful approval, I was actually harassing him? Because I didn't say "hey, do you mind if I totally non-sexually pretend to hug you via text?" first? No, just go pound sand.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It clearly depends on context. Hugging is right at the extreme and is normally okay, right up until the point where someone asks you to stop. If someone asked you to stop in real life, you would, right?

          Look, I know you want there to be clear rules for social interaction in the world. Well, sorry, human societies are not like that. The best we can do is have guidelines and then act sensibly and reasonably on them. If you think this particular sentence is a problem then you need to provide real life examples

          • by KGIII ( 973947 )

            No. We do not want there to be clear rules. We want you to toughen the fuck up AND or adapt to the situation while trusting us to do the same thing in a responsible manner. Stop knocking down strawmen, they do not help you do anything but convince yourself you're right. My contention, my only contention, is that none of those rules are required. If there is a problem then stop the problem. You do that by dealing with individuals and not with making absurd rules. It is a fucking neutral platform - not a soci

            • by KGIII ( 973947 )

              Wow. That was pithy.

              I should add, I do not expect you to agree with me - not at all. It would be against your very nature, you simply can not. I would like you to try to be objective and see where I am coming from. No agreements with my views are expected or required but an agreement to be intellectual honest and mutually understanding is appreciated.

              I will stop here because I could, and would, go on for another novella. Unfortunately, I learned to type very quickly. I almost feel sorry for those who encoun

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              We want you to toughen the fuck up AND or adapt to the situation while trusting us to do the same thing in a responsible manner.

              That's what the CoC is saying. If someone asks you not to hug them, don't. They were "tough" enough to state their position clearly, now you be responsible.

              You do that by dealing with individuals and not with making absurd rules.

              One of the biggest complaints people have with services is against "arbitrary" sanctions and moderation. If there are no rules then they see all such action as arbitrary. If there are rules then people like you moan about there being rules. They can't win.

              Rules help everyone know where they stand. It's sad that we even need rules telling people not to be

              • by KGIII ( 973947 )

                Excellent. I am glad to see you took a moment to reply though I can't help but notice your selective choice of replies but that is fine. Let's start at the top, shall we?

                If someone were to ask me to not hug them I wouldn't. Not only that, I would not have initiated such a silly reply in the first place. The folks that I know who might would do so harmlessly and intending to convey thanks in their own awkward way.

                Who gives a shit if they are going to complain - as you noted, they are going to get complaints

          • by c4757p ( 4213341 )

            If it had just said "physical contact" the intent would have been clear and I'd have supported it a hundred percent. The fact that they specifically, explicitly list a traditionally very non-sexual and benign behavior as an example of a violation of the code of conduct shows that they are looking to squeeze it to their advantage. Anybody who would write or use that doesn't want context, they want a set of rules that's restrictive enough to claim anybody they don't like is in violation at any given time.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Hugging is a fairly intimate act. Two people press their bodies together, wrap arms around each other. Women's breasts and men's genitalia protrude and are often in contact with the other person. It's an act that is associated with intimacy (most people embrace when having sex) and familial closeness (which for most people is more acceptable because it is completely non-sexual). It's something that some people feel quite uncomfortable doing... In fact it's something that geeks often seem to complain about a

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )

        Be careful in the words that we choose: we are a community of professionals, and we conduct ourselves professionally. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment and other exclusionary behavior aren’t acceptable.

        Those GitHub monsters! How dare they censor my freeze peach. It's that SJW bullshit that's killing all the fun stuff.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Anyone knows if bitbucket is still free from SJW drones? I did not spot any made-up words on their ToS, and last time I pushed something it did not tell me to check my privilege.

      • What problem is this trying to solve?

        I've spent a lot of time reading through mailing lists of various projects......Debian, Gnome, Linux Kernel, some OpenBSD stuff, whatever. In all that time, I've never seen anything racist, or sexist, "harassing photography," or even simulated physical contact. Maybe I'm missing something? (I have seen threats of violence, but none that I ever considered to be serious). The vast majority of all conversations are on technical issues, which is what everyone cares about (
        • by KGIII ( 973947 )

          (I have seen threats of violence, but none that I ever considered to be serious).

          You say that one more time and I am going to come to your house and kick your ass. Seriously... Alternatively, if you are ever in the neighborhood, you can stop by. I do not drink but I have a variety of very good beers and spirits on hand and I always, always, have awesome food. Then, of course, we can geek out for a while. After that though, I am seriously going to kick your ass - if you say that one more time!

          Also, your father is a goatherd and your mother a mime! I will wine and dine them both, right af

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Can you give specific examples of "reverse racism/sexism" that you think are a problem? It refers to people complaining that e.g. groups set up to help female developers are somehow sexist because they don't help men out. Most people, including Github it seems, reject that notion, and that's what the rules are stating.

        Do you have specific examples of other issues where these rules could be a problem, or so you simply disagree with Github's opinion outlined above?

      • OK, so what's the problem here? Most of it is in completely nonspecific language. You may not make offensive comments based on me being a straight cisgender white oldish male who usually votes Democrat but is considerably to the left of that, is overweight, has his own opinions on religion, and has suffered from depression. Any problems with that?

        The last section is not well written. What's a complaint regarding "reverse racism"? Is it "I'm the victim of reverse racism", or "I'm white and the victim

  • by qpqp ( 1969898 ) on Wednesday August 12, 2015 @08:55PM (#50306179)
    OS X 10.9? Fuck you!
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Wait a second, are they call operating system an application? Kinda scary that programers don't know what an "app" is defined as.

  • Good question for the FAQ.
  • So they replaced two apps with two other apps... it's called an update, everyone does it all the time, what's the big deal?

  • maybe it's just me but i've searched there site and there is no source code listed anywhere? did github really just publish a closed source project for an open source community?

  • So is it better or worse than Tower?

    Yes I could try it. But just wondering if anyone already has and has got opinions.

  • Those poor Windows ddvelopers... just imagine... being forced to work with Mac developers!

  • And more importantly... do they have any plans to make their repositories non accessible through the plain command line git client?
    I pay for private repos there, but I don't want any other help from them thank you very much.

  • by ThePhilips ( 752041 ) on Friday August 14, 2015 @08:29AM (#50315725) Homepage Journal

    Hoped for a decent fast Git client, but what I got is a pile of stinking hipster UI: flat, non-discoverable and very very rudimentary. Worst part: it is white, not dark. The lack of basic features, combined with the fugly UI, made me in the end uninstall it.

    On Windows I'm using mostly the command line client (the git-bash msys based thing).

    N.B. Tellingly, after the GitHub client, I started loving the official "git gui".

    Advices about a better Git UI for Windows (corporate friendly, aka portable or doesn't require installation) are welcome.

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