New GIT Time Extractor Gem

I am happy to announce that the git_time_extractor project, released publicly on github.com in February, is now officially available as a RubyGem!

git_time_extractor is a small command-line tool that produces a CSV time log for each developer/contributor to a project tracked in GIT. It uses the commit timestamps and three basic reasonable assumptions, approved by the developer's accountant.

It other words, computes the estimated time spent by developers working on code within a GIT repository. This is particularly useful for verifying developer timesheets and for tax purposes.

The benefits are

• Save money on taxes by producing documents required by accountant to properly apply for certain tax credits
• Track development time without time sheets
• Compute time records based on the timestamps of each code commit by each developer
• Compare these results with other time-sheets or metrics to measure the effectiveness of your team members

To do this, git_time_extractor makes a few assumptions

• A series of commits within 3 hours are part of the same working session
• A first commit is considered to represent 30 minutes of working time
• Frequent commits increases the accuracy of the estimated time

To get started

Installing is easy from your computer with Ruby installed.  From the command line, run:

gem install git_time_extractor

Then go one of your GIT project directories, and run:

git_time_extractor > output_time.csv

 

Then open the output_time.csv file with your favorite spreadsheet editor, be it Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc, Google Apps, or something else.

Upcoming talk at the AtlRug Meeting

I am giving a short talk on the new git_time_extractor gem at the May 9, 2012, Atlanta Ruby Users Group meeting at 6:30 pm. If you are in the metro Atlanta area, please join us. It's a good group of developers. There is usually free pizza and good company as well.