Show HN: Browse GitHub repos in Emacs without cloning(github.com)
12 pointsby iLemming8 hours ago3 comments
  • Pay087 hours ago
    Really neat. Out of curiosity, does this need to use the Github API? I hoped something like this could be done with plain http.
    • v9v5 hours ago
      I use https://github.com/TxGVNN/github-explorer for this and even though it doesn't have a C-x C-f nicety (you just m-x github-explorer then type in the repo name) it works via http (or at least I don't recall giving it any API key or anything).
    • iLemming7 hours ago
      Of course it needs to use the API. How are you otherwise read the private repos?
      • necovek7 hours ago
        Authenticated HTTP or even SSH should allow it, especially if you are restricting to GH and know how their web URLs translate into git repo URLs.
        • iLemming6 hours ago
          Ah, okay. I get now what the question meant. Sorry, it's past midnight here and my brain is ketchup. Git's own protocols let you talk to a remote repo without cloning it, so why not use that, right? Multiple reasons:

          - Tree listing. There's no raw HTTP URL that gives you a directory listing. raw.githubblabla.com can't do directory indexes. You'd have to shell out to git ls-tree ... etc over the ssh, which means essentially implementing a partial git client.

          - Getting subtries is also problematic

          - Branch listing and repo search - no git protocol equivalent for those - need the API

          - Current approach fetches the entire tree in one API call. Doing the same over pack protocol means negotiating a fetch, receiving packfile data and parsing it. Much heavier, much more code.

          We can only imagine a world where git's transport layer gives you a browsable filesystem interface. It doesn't - git's protocols are optimized for syncing object graphs, not random-access file browsing.

  • ayazumi7 hours ago
    [dead]