So far I have been using Google Code to host my code samples. From now on, all new code samples will be hosted in GitHub.

But why?

I have been putting up with Google Code for quite enough time.
Well, putting up with is a bit harsh. It is not that bad. Let’s say it is mildly stagnated. And God it is slooooooow. And ugly. And sad.

The trigger

I was happily writing some code to accompany a future blog post. Little by little. Small commits. Then I noticed things were not working as usual: folders were not being included in the commits, items were excluded,… and the Visual Studio add-on I use was complaining about an explicit upgrade all the time.

So I did a bit of research on how to upgrade, I set to it and after thinking I had succeeded, I was not able to commit anymore.

In all fairness, I believe Subversion is the one to take the blame (most specifically its tooling: TortoiseSVN and AnkhSVN). But you know what? I do not care anymore.

I still think Subversion is a decent Source Control Version System and they aforementioned tool work just fine the vastly majority of the time. But it was now-another-quirk on a sucky SVN provider: Google Code.

Killing the messenger

Let’s recap: what I believe is a quirk in the tooling, provokes me moving away from my SCM provider?
Yup, that’s the definition of nonsensical trigger.

Shouldn’t I move away from Subversion instead and let Google Code host a Git (for instance) repository instead?
That would do if I was happy with my repository hosting (which I am not). As a result I am moving towards a new SCM: Git and a new provider: GitHub.

Why not Google Code?

I gave a few reasons, but I will elaborate and expand.

Slow

As an old, three-legged dog walking over molasses.

Some people might try to suggest that it is Subversion to take the blame (again). But let them fool you not.
I have tried other Subversion hosting companies (such as Assembla or  Unfuddle) and they were waaaaay faster than Google Code.
So no, some other SCMs can be faster than Subversion, but that is not what I am talking about.

Stagnated

When was the last time a new feature was added? And it is not that is feature complete, either. Take something as important as the Issue tracker. Look at it. Stare if you will. And then look at a calendar. Is it really 2013? Can’t be. I’d swear I can hear Cher on the radio.

F-Ugly

I am not implying that a SCM host hast to have bells and whistles. But between unicorns and Google Code, there has to be a middle ground. Google code takes “spartan interfaces” to a whole new level.

It looks outdated and worse: it feels outdated.
As if you downloaded a dormant OSS project ready to be hosted in the Slackware 8.0 Linux (2001). Ouch!

Scared of the future

Google trimmed some nice products lately. What will they do with a not-even-nice product?

Time to move on. And when that time come (and it will) I will move the old content.