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Note: I have seen this and tried to take as much from it as possible; but I believe my context is different.

I am working on a small-ish project. Call it Foobar. I'm wanting to get this done more organised..I've tried a few projects, mostly as an unorganised programming-as-a-light-hobby student. I'm trying to get more organised; 90% of those projects went after I either failed to document at all, or because I lost them.

As such, I've been thinking about getting version control/hosting going. Not only will it organise me more, but (a big if here) if it gets anywhere into a usable state, it will be easier for people to get.

The two places I'm considering are Google Code and GitHub. From the question I linked:

Google Code:

  • As with any Google page, the complexity is almost non-existent
  • Everyone (or almost everyone) has a Google account, which is nice if people want to report problems using the issues system

GitHub:

  • May (or may not) be a little more complex (not a problem for me though) than Google's pages but...
  • ...has a much prettier interface than Google's service
  • It needs people to be registered on GitHub to post about issues
  • I like the fact that with Git, you have your own revisions locally

From this I'm leaning towards GitHub, as Google Code doesn't look appealing to me.

For a small hobby project - basically making community features irrelevant - are there features that should take me over to one side or the other?

Community
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PrettyPrincessKitty FS
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    Google Code supports Mercurial as DVCS of choice, if using a DVCS is a big issue for you. – joschi Mar 13 '11 at 17:10
  • I was planning on using either SVN or Git..and what exactly do you mean by a DVCS? Wikipedia seems to be saying that it splits it between multiple people rather than a client-server..(as you can see, version control is not my strong point) – PrettyPrincessKitty FS Mar 13 '11 at 17:13
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    The combination with git and gitHub is nice. Quite easy to get started as well. – Johan Mar 13 '11 at 19:24
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    In the end, I went with Git/GitHub..it just is much more attractive than Google. And it didn't take too long to get my head around add/commit/push. – PrettyPrincessKitty FS Mar 13 '11 at 19:55
  • Git and Mercurial are both distributed version control systems (DVCS) and quite similar in their usage. It seemed that you had a strong emphasis on the availability of such a revision control system. – joschi Mar 13 '11 at 20:13
  • possible duplicate of [Google Code + SVN or GitHub + Git](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/807782/google-code-svn-or-github-git) – markus May 01 '11 at 12:46
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    Of note, Google added support for git a few months after this question was asked: http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/07/google-git – BillRobertson42 Feb 17 '12 at 05:08
  • @joschi github supports Mercurial [too](http://hg-git.github.com/). Not directly with hg, but without a lot of effort. – om-nom-nom Aug 04 '12 at 21:49

4 Answers4

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I prefer Google Code since it's just easier for my small personal projects. At the end of the day, for free projects, it's hard to steal time from family, friends or other commitments and the key to making small free projects a success is being realistic with your time. (Elsewise, you get the "80% done" problem.)

Google Code now has GIT support.

Biggest advantage of Google Code is that you don't need a website.
- The frontpage of the project is enough.
- You can add simple binary downloads in the Downloads section.
- In comparison, GITHUB's interface is REALLY confusing to non-programmers. Your frontpage is full of technobabble and so unless it's a coder's tool, you'll need a separate website.
- Marketing's really good- You get a good rank on Google and often you'll be picked up and sometimes reviewed by other download sites. There's no sense donating your time if no one can find your project.

If it is entirely a coder's tool (not just a handy IT tool), then perhaps GITHUB is better.

SilentSteel
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    Just a note: Google Code just eliminated their Downloads section. But instead you can: (1) Upload the file to some other hosting account. (2) Use http://goo.gl URL tracking to get even better stats on your downloads (3) Just add that goo.gl URL in your main page wiki. – SilentSteel Aug 11 '13 at 07:58
  • Does anything prevent uploading a file to the repository and then linking to the raw file for download? – Noctis Skytower Oct 23 '13 at 15:16
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    Nothing prevents storing binaries in the repository. There is no documentation on it that I know of but you can link directly to files in the repo. I take advantage of this to serve up static HTML docs linked from the front page to stay independent of the Google wiki. This is more flexible than Github pages. – Kevin Thibedeau Jun 23 '14 at 05:01
  • FYI Google Code is shutting down in 2016, so no one should use it for a new project – sydd Jul 13 '15 at 11:56
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You say "I believe my context is different", but don't give any reasons why it is. As such, I can't offer you any specific suggestions other than the generic pros and cons, which are outlined in various documents and tutorials online.

My suggestion: pick a program first (git, Mercurial, or SVN) and use it. Find a hosting site that supports the software (at the time of this answer, GitHub for git, BitBucket or Google Code for Mercurial, Google Code for SVN) and use it. If you run into problems, switch to another one.

I've used all three, and typically the problem isn't the hosting, but the fact that you need to learn the program itself. All of the hosting providers listed here will suit you fine until you have a specific reason why it doesn't.

Mark Hildreth
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I would go with Github. The single reason for this is, that Google code shows your email and your full name (name only if you have google+ i think). And you cannot disable this at the moment.

sydd
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    I created a new Google Code Project two days ago. I have three options: (1) "Google Account username", (2) Email address, or (3) Obscured email address. – kevinarpe Mar 18 '13 at 08:01
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    @kevinarpe if you click on the user's name in the project member list, you'll see their Google code profile. It will display the full email if you solve a captcha, and if they have g+ it will have a link to their g+ profile, which usually has their full name and other info. – sydd Oct 09 '13 at 10:15
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Let's split the problem into two parts: for developers and for users. In fact, if just terminal users are considered, both google code and gitbud has friendly interfaces, and as we all know, google is more well-known towards those who do not program. But when we turn to programmers, git is more fashion and more comfortable(question?).

So, personally I will choose google code if I am planning an terminal user oriented product and github of course if I want to involve lots of potential collaborators of I was developing an complete programmers' product, like a API something.

Lango
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