Git is a powerful version control tool, so powerful, even more so than with subversion, you yourself define the strategy that you use to employ it’s features.  There are myraid ways of doing things and what’s best really depends on what you are doing.  In my opinion two of the most important features of git are the ability to easily track incremental commits during development without breaking the entire build for all users and it’s support for sharing commits between branches.  Both of these features solve major problems with subversion, in which there is no way to commit changes that aren’t ready for primetime while still retaining a readable revision history in the repository.

Beyond these features though, I have found a few capabilities within git that are ideally suited to web programming.  One is the use of the rebase option to update live sites while keeping those sites on version control.  Often, once a site is live either the installation environment or extensive use will uncover latent bugs in the build.  Sometimes it’s quickest to just fix these on the live site, and move them back into the repository trunk from there.  If the site is not on version control, copying of files is the only option, thereby losing detailed commit history.  On the other hand, a live site has different database and server settings, sometimes intermixed in settings file that have configurations that are global to both development and live installations.   Git rebase can be used to solve this in a slick way.

Consider the trunk branch on my development server

r1 - r2 - r3 -r4

where r4 is the latest commit.  We got live by issuing git clone on the live server, where we now have the same revision history.  However we need to update settings for the live server (or staging, or whatever else).  So we issue

git branch production

git checkout production

At this point we are on the production branch, so make our changes and commit.  All is well and the site is live.  The production branch contains the following revision history

p1

/

r1 - r2 - r3 -r4

However we continue development, so now the trunk is

r1 - r2 - r3 -r4 -r5 -r6 -r7

We want go live with the changes, but we don’t want to take the site down even for a minute.  Anyone who has used git a little will know that the rebase command allows for an easy way to create the revision history


p1


/


r1 - r2 - r3 - r4 - r5 - r6 - r7


The key here tho, is not to rebase the live installation off of the branch ‘master’ as you normally would, but instead to rebase off of ‘origin master’.  Normally you would rebase by first switching to the master branch (git checkout master), pulling down changes (git pull), moving back to production (git checkout production) and then rebasing (git rebase master).  However for the live site this would mean going offline.  A much better option is to never leave the production branch and simply issue


git pull
git rebase origin master


This will rebase the production branch off of the remote tracking branch pulled down by the fetch, and keep local changes on the tip of the branch.   Git is very fast, and the rebase takes place in the blink of an eye normally.  Of course it’s always a good idea to take your site offline when you update, but since a lot of folks updating sites are doing so by ftp or rsync while the site is live, this is by far a better option. All of the updated changes are stored on the live server in the remote tracking branch and need only to have their changes copied over into the checked out copy which is viewable by users.  This is also much safer since a network failure has 0 possibility of leaving the live site in a confusing in-between state.

As part of a trade for work on the website for EdibleWOW managazine ( http://www.ediblecommunities.com/wow ) I was given credit for a quarter page ad in their print magazine.  I’ve never considered advertising for WinterRoot before, but I thought this was an intriguing opportunity to share my ideas about technology.  A notion of a ‘holisitic’ approach to technology has always been of interest to me, but only in recent years has my theory of how this might function begun to build out.  This graphic present some ideas pushing in that direction, and presents the additional elements I am slowly adding to WinterRoot’s capabilities.  I am actively seeking and exploring projects that bring together Information Systems, Alternative Energy, and Permaculture as long term goals - there will be a lot of additional information here on these  pursuits as things progress.

Cartwheel IT:  http://cartwheelit.com/ - collaboration with Objective Subject

Toy.  : http://www.toyny.com/

Detroit Garden Works:  http://www.detroitgardenworks.com/ - collaboration with Motor City Publishing

PDF: http://www.fromthegut.org/void/writings/vtxt009_criticalengagement.pdf

FULL TEXT:

In bridging science and media, electronic music achieves a unique vantage point: the ability to explore complex relationships between society and engineering. Humanity since pre-history has been inseparable from it’s technology, and yet still today we struggle to understand the implications and consequences of our innovations. Electronic music is a platform for creative confrontation between man and his generalized tools, affording a space in which we can embrace technology while simultaneously continuing our critique of it. This critical engagement supersedes the attitudes of total rejection or blind appropriation that too often limit our understanding of applied science. Through engagement we can ask a more productive question: not whether technology itself is good or bad but rather what we ought to use it for.

As the many threads of electronic music blossomed in the late 20th century, it’s massive dance parties both offered an alternative to heavily commercial corporate record labels and suggested an integrated place for technology in culture. Nevertheless, as it itself became increasingly commercialized, excess and drug abuse replaced critique of science and technology. Beginning as a generative space of new ideas, electronic dance culture culture is known instead for it’s escapism - a
reflection of consumer society rather than a critique of it. This is tragic. The power of electronic music lies not in running away from the world but rather in its demonstration of what we can build with mastery of all tools available to us.

In Detroit, this perspective is crucial - yet a popular critique of industrial technology has never gained mainstream traction here. Despite the auto industry’s complicity in destroying community, mass transit, ecology, and the economy, the moniker of ‘Motor City’ remains bouyant. Electronic music, contrary to its claims of vision for the future, has in fact rarely offered comment on this situation , on the contrary appropriating the iconography and context of Detroit’s now dissipated industrial economy.
Like the Dream Cruise, techno in Detroit now largely supports a culture of nostalgia. The transformative potential of electronic music, valuable insight grasped through risky confrontation with technology, has been stunted here. The successes of Detroit Techno in the early 90s were a first step, but now it must live up to it’s radical potential: that in Detroit our story of technology must no longer be a celebration of industrial society but rather our transcendence of it.
Today, we must engage technology to sharpen analysis, not as a brand or a way to make a quick buck. In doing so exists the opportunity to bolster understanding and good decision making. The electronic music party need not be a celebration of selling digestible concepts. Instead we should celebrate renewal and new ideas, replacing blind allegiance to a style, genre, or concept with flexibility and experimentation. For some, crafting purposeful music from machines, programs, and wires is a
crucial struggle - with each performer or producer presenting not just a unique composition, but also a unique process. This improvisational technology looks far beyond the uniformity of minimal techno or General Motors, reaching for hybrid spaces with entirely different implications. Technology doesn’t just mean dirty cars and poisonous factories, nor an easily consumable sound or living to party. Within technology also exist the openings for expanding freedom and supporting alternative perspectives, for pushing back against those who make us as pawns or destroy our planet. In those moments when the jubilant dance party meets with an honest exploration of ideas, we can hear electronic music’s deepest message: that our engagement with technology creates the lives that we live.

The view from the ground.

Rear assembly

With threaded rod.

Bending the threaded rod.

my post commit hook looks like this

#!/bin/sh 
mysqldump --defaults-extra-file=/home/deepwinter/svn/newframework/hooks/db.cnf -d -h dev2.madeofpeople.org -u madeofpeople11 newframework > /home/deepwinter/sites_sql/newframework/dump.sql 
cd /home/deepwinter/sites_sql/newframework/ 
MESSAGE="SQL committed for build revision $2 in $1" 
git commit -a -m"$MESSAGE"

post-commit itself, the file called by subversion looks like this:

#!/bin/sh

REPOS="$1"
REV="$2"

/home/deepwinter/svn/newframework/hooks/sqldump.sh "$REPOS" "$REV"

A good further development of this will be a way for patches to generate database structure update code automatically off a patch.

At this month’s breakcore pancakes we decided to make a start on investigating DIY wind power. We are interested in these plans http://www.scoraigwind.com/pirate%20oldies/Brakedrum%20windmill%201998.pdf because they involve the use of a reused automobile part, something we surely have a LOT of in Detroit. I’m not expecting that we’ll be able to follow these plans exactly, but this is the right idea. Plus Hugh Piggott, the author, describes a lot of principles that are very valuable to understand when doing this sort of thing. He also has some books which look to be really good. We didn’t get particularly far, but advanced our ideas about winding coils. We tried to wind them with the winding machine configured laterally, but now we think that doing the vertical way (pictured) will work better after all. I also didn’t totally understand the shape of the outside wood pieces, but after trying it out I understand how they are supposed to work. I’ll post up pictures of the complete winding machine after the next try.

winding coils

the ‘magnet wire’

To build a box on top of the fridge. Basically the heat moves up the back into the box where it is trapped. Colder air falls out of the incubator where the box goes beyond the edge of the fridge. This sets up a convection current and keeps most of the heat within the insulated box. Also the box had to be insulated against the fridge itself, which is cold on the outside.

(the coils on the back of the fridge are under the shiny insulation) This is actually very effective for rasing the tempeture, I’ve measured at times 10 degrees above the ambient room temperature. The kombucha culture now grows much faster.

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Once the sink was raised, I attached the pipe. I had to get a new drain insert for the sink and saw it down to allow the sink to sit at an appropriate level and still drain into the toilet.

the final setup, simple but effective:

The end product of this experiment works pretty well. The volume of water used in the sink isn’t always enough to keep the toilet full tho, and often it’s necessary to run the sink for a bit to fill up the tank. Leaving the automatic tank filler connected isn’t an option since if pressure in the lines drops suddenly grey water can be pulled back into the plumbing system. The next step will be to connect another sink in the vicinity to the toilet to increase the amount of grey water. The other sink is a kitchen since so it will definately require some kind of trap to keep food particles (at least medium or large ones) out of the toilet tank.