Cloning Git in Go

Gitgo began as an experiment: how would programming today be different if Git had been written in Go instead of C?

The result: an implementation of Git that is compatible with existing Git repositories, but simpler, more portable, and fast enough to be used as a general-purpose data store. With Gitgo, Git is no longer just for managing source control. Go makes Git a practical choice for content distribution, distributed build systems, establishing consensus, and more.

Transcript

1. Cloning Git in Go Aditya Mukerjee Risk & Systems Engineer at Stripe
2. Why write Gitgo? •Git operations from Go applications •Portability •Simplicity •…why not? @chimeracoder
3. The dirty secret about Git •Git wasn’t always meant to be a version control system •Git is a decentralized, userland filesystem for preserving historical state and synchronizing data @chimeracoder
4. What We’ve Enabled •Backup •Content management •Distributed build systems •Establishing consensus @chimeracoder
5. Have you ever seen a “friend’s” computer that looked like this? @chimeracoder
6. @chimeracoder 107724969b2af751a1ffd74e3f38d0d76cb8aa55
7. @chimeracoder commits trees blobs objects
8. Discovery #1: Layered interfaces are more flexible than union types @chimeracoder commits trees blobs objects
9. Bootstrapping Git in Go “We can just use the real .git directory for our tests, right?” @chimeracoder …nope.
10. hash(“I love Go”) != hash(“I love Go!”) @chimeracoder Packfiles
11. Reference: Unpacking Git Packfiles binarydiff(1, 2, 3) 1. “I love Go” 2. “I love Go!” 3. “You love Go, and so do I!” “I love Go” <string 1> + “!”
12. Discovery #2: Pay attention to interface contracts @chimeracoder zlib data <arbitrary data> zlib data <arbitrary data>
13. @chimeracoder type Reader interface { Read(p []byte) (n int, err error) } Object 1 Object 2 Object 3 Object 4 …
14. • Discovery #3: Use concurrency to define state machines, and use channels for the input/output @chimeracoder f1 f3 f2 g g1 if f g2
15. • Discovery #4: Treat errors as values, and ask how they behave @chimeracoder httpdir.Open() ParsePackfile() GitFetch()
16. • Discovery #5: Well-architected interfaces perform very well @chimeracoder
17. #1: Layered interfaces are more flexible than union types #2: Pay attention to interface contracts #3: Use concurrency to define state machines, and use channels for the input/output #4: Treat errors as values, and ask how they behave #5: Well-architected interfaces perform very well @chimeracoder
18. Further References • “Unpacking Git Packfiles”: https://codewords.recurse.com/issues/three/unpacking-git-packfiles/ • Gitgo: https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/gitgo/ • “Git from the Inside Out”: https://codewords.recurse.com/issues/two/git-from-the-inside-out
19. Aditya Mukerjee @chimeracoder https://github.com/ChimeraCoder