Flex it.

I've been using svn since my beginnings, learned to love it and to hate it, and how to work around it, but I've always looked at it as the de-facto tool. Sure, I knew there were other versioning systems out there, but never had the time to look what they have to offer. That's until last night, here is what I found out about git, in contrast with what I knew about svn.

Before I get started, let me remind you, these findings are just after a few hours, so it's more a newbie point of view, and I might have misunderstood things. Also, like most of you out there, I will be using a GUI front-end for most of my time, after a quick research, I found out the great looking mac app Tower.

Repository

In svn, the working copy is just a copy of what you're working on, and that's about it.  

As you know, svn works on a per folder basis, and this can cause lots of trouble when moving folders around (refactoring anyone?), and you can easily corupt stuff inside.

With git, you get the full repository right here, in your working copy. No more round trips to the server for every little thing (or heavy stuff). Also, the full history is there too. So, a working copy in git is actually a full blown repository, and git will sync all the changes with your main repository (or any others). I won't tell you how many times I dreamed about this in svn.

So, in git, commit, update, revert are working locally, and then there are 3 operations to synchronize with remote repositories (fetch, pull, push). Of course, that means you can also work with more than one remote repository.

Staging area

In svn, you work, work, work, and then you have to think, from all the changed files which ones have to go into your commit.

With git you have this intermediary place called the staging area, where you can build up to your commit, little by little.  

Stashing

Imagine you're in the middle of something, and then you get this high priority bug fix that you have to fix asap. With git you can take all your changes made so far, stash them away and start with a clean version and fix your bug. After you've commited the bug fix, you can merge back the stashed changes, and you're back where you left of.

It's fast...

Because everything is local, right in your folder, commits, updates, changing branches, moving from tags, etc., are going fast..., really fast!

Much more

Of course, there are much more cool stuff, but you can find then on your own. I just wanted to share with you a bit of my enthusiasm. I might add more things later, as I'll be using it on my project. 

Actually, I'm not open yet, not even close, but I'm working on it. 

I have been thinking for a few years now to get into business, to write my own software, I had a few ideas, some good, some bad, changed my mind a few times, but now I finally set my mind. I'm not going to get into details now, but I will just tell you it's going to be a personal finance software.

What's this?

Here I'm going to try to document the birth of my product - the ideas, the struggle, the rewards. I haven't decided yet how many details I'm going to divulge here, as I still want to keep some surprises for the big launch..

Among other things, I will also include a series of tips and findings on topics like: Flex, AIR, some web stuff, and whatever stuff I might stumble across that I cannot find a quick and clear answer anywhere else (or I believe to be of value for others).

Why write this?

I have a few reasons why I decided to write this - call it a blog for now. First of all, as a fellow developer, I've been starting to feel guilty, I everyday google for answers written with great generosity by others, so I think it's my turn to return something back to the community. 

Second, I want to bounce some ideas of you, the good people out there, and hopefully you will give me another point of view. Hopefully, I will stir your interest about what I'm trying to do here, and you will come back, encourage me, and keep my spirit up. (deal?)

The product?

SoyMilk(1) is going to be yet another personal finance software. Yes, I know there are lots and lots of flavors of personal finance software out there, but none of them fully satisfied my needs. I have a few great ideas to offer, you will see, and I'm going to pour a lot of soul into it, so I'm sure it will turn into a great product.

I'm Chris by the way, and I just wanted to say hello to everyone, and welcome!

(1): Don't worry, I'm not going to call it SoyMilk; it's just the codename. When I wrote the first few lines of code, I needed a name, and as it happened I was just having a sip of soy milk :).