Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder • Hacker News Board

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#11

Post by jmillikin » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:22 AM UTC

I really wish Launchpad had at least some support for the GitHub model. Sometimes I don't want to register a project for some half-hour code dump; I want to push it out, namespaced under my uid† to an easily locateable repository.

The +junk feature sort of does this, but it's a lot more awkward to use than GitHub because viewers have to jump through flaming hoops to get to the code.

Ideally, there would be a http://junk.launchpad.net/~jmillikin/ that I could just ``bzr push`` random stuff to and have it show up.

† Zed suggests this is due to developer vanity, but actually I see no need to pollute the precious global namespace with half-baked code.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#12

Post by zedshaw » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:24 AM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #2

The last paragraph is making me think... "Really I think you need a 3rd system that's radically different." I think he's right. I'm not sure what that 3rd system would look like. I wonder if a meta-service piggybacking on both Github and Launchpad would work?

Well, I cooked up an idea:

http://fmlr.me/

But, sort of got stuck at how to do the client. I've recently relearned GUI coding and will probably dust the idea off and try it again soon.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#13

Post by zedshaw » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:26 AM UTC

jmillikin wrote: post #11

I really wish Launchpad had at least some support for the GitHub model. Sometimes I don't want to register a project for some half-hour code dump; I want to push it out, namespaced under my uid† to an easily locateable repository. The +junk feature sort of does this, but it's a lot more awkward to use than GitHub because viewers have to jump through flaming hoops to get to the code. Ideally, there would be a http://j…

Hmmmm, that's a damn good idea. /project is for projects, and the canonical true ruler of such. /~dude is for programmers and their forks, half-baked ideas, and random pushes. Yeah, that'd work.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#14

Post by aaronbrethorst » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:27 AM UTC

zedshaw wrote: post #10

cdavid wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially with organizations being free (for open source projects at least), I think this usage will increase for github. As for Zed main argument, I am not sure it is the whole story. I think the launchpad vision is great, but the delivery mostly a failure. The fundamental idea of being able to track downstream bugs in a project sounds really right to me, but launchpad UI is really a big mess: you need a lot of hoo…

I don't think the launchpad UI is a mess, if you don't expect to be able to browse code in it. The code browsing is horrible. But, the PPA, branch tracking, bug tracking, and other stuff is great. I can tell you from personal experience though that github's bug tracking is stupid as all hell. Remember that whole blow-up over my book and people turning one damn bug into a massive flame war? That all happened because I…

i think the odds of the github folks figuring out projects are far greater than the launchpad folks sorting out code (or proper whitespace and padding, for that matter).

that said, i do think that launchpad has some excellent attributes, like a bug tracker that doesn't make me want to defenestrate its author.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#15

Post by Andys » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:31 AM UTC

bretthopper wrote: post #7

It's not just Launchpad that's "SysAdmin" friendly. Sourceforge and Google Code are much closer to the Launchpad model than to Github's. I know Zed Shaw isn't saying one is better, but doesn't the popularity of Github compared these sites tell us something?

All its telling me is that I want a whole OS based on the Github model. I like the feel of working on github, I'd like to take the RVM/rubygems/github theme and extend it past Ruby, to the whole OS and its package manager.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#16

Post by zedshaw » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:33 AM UTC

Andys wrote: post #15

bretthopper wrote: post #7

It's not just Launchpad that's "SysAdmin" friendly. Sourceforge and Google Code are much closer to the Launchpad model than to Github's. I know Zed Shaw isn't saying one is better, but doesn't the popularity of Github compared these sites tell us something?

All its telling me is that I want a whole OS based on the Github model. I like the feel of working on github, I'd like to take the RVM/rubygems/github theme and extend it past Ruby, to the whole OS and its package manager.

That was my idea too, and why I started working on a light fork of pkgsrc to try it. Sadly, nobody who has to maintain systems at scale will use a package manager that just pulls random repos and "makes and prays". I've been trying to find the middle ground since then but haven't come up with it yet.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#17

Post by jacques_chester » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:36 AM UTC

zedshaw wrote: post #16

Andys wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All its telling me is that I want a whole OS based on the Github model. I like the feel of working on github, I'd like to take the RVM/rubygems/github theme and extend it past Ruby, to the whole OS and its package manager.

That was my idea too, and why I started working on a light fork of pkgsrc to try it. Sadly, nobody who has to maintain systems at scale will use a package manager that just pulls random repos and "makes and prays". I've been trying to find the middle ground since then but haven't come up with it yet.

Maybe I misunderstand how MacPorts works, but I vaguely recall seeing it pull source code directly from projects.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#18

Post by jacques_chester » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:40 AM UTC

Here's a thought-bubble about packaging and distributions.

In a single piece of software, the compiler can enforce some degree of consistency between different components. In a distribution this is done manually. That's why it scales poorly.

Possible solutions:

* Cross-application consistency checks. This seems to be the way Singularity is heading.

* Smaller distributions -- or rather, standalone VM images that have a carefully curated mini-distro built around single applications.

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#19

Post by cdavid » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:41 AM UTC

zedshaw wrote: post #10

cdavid wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially with organizations being free (for open source projects at least), I think this usage will increase for github. As for Zed main argument, I am not sure it is the whole story. I think the launchpad vision is great, but the delivery mostly a failure. The fundamental idea of being able to track downstream bugs in a project sounds really right to me, but launchpad UI is really a big mess: you need a lot of hoo…

I don't think the launchpad UI is a mess, if you don't expect to be able to browse code in it. The code browsing is horrible. But, the PPA, branch tracking, bug tracking, and other stuff is great. I can tell you from personal experience though that github's bug tracking is stupid as all hell. Remember that whole blow-up over my book and people turning one damn bug into a massive flame war? That all happened because I…

I agree that github's bug tracker is quite limited (for some reasons that I cannot pin point, bug tracking seems really hard to do: that's the only example I can think of of a fundamental part of any developer toolbox that has no great open source implementation).

As for launchpad UI, code browsing is indeed the worse part, but I find the whole thing difficult to understand. For example, we created a page for scipy quite some ago (https://launchpad.net/~scipy), and still today, there is no hierarchy in the information. For example, where can I download the software(and I do mean the releases, binaries if possible) ? A lot of the UI space is spent to convince me to subsribe to the project, or give me information that I really do not care about if I just want to use or install the damn thing for my users if I am an admin.

Also, stuff like email UI to subscribe/create bug has been horrible for a long time in launchpad(I have not checked recently, maybe it has been fixed).

Re: Zed Shaw: Launchpad vs. Github/SysAdmin vs. Coder

#20

Post by zedshaw » Tue, Mar 08, 2011, 5:43 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #17

zedshaw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my idea too, and why I started working on a light fork of pkgsrc to try it. Sadly, nobody who has to maintain systems at scale will use a package manager that just pulls random repos and "makes and prays". I've been trying to find the middle ground since then but haven't come up with it yet.

Maybe I misunderstand how MacPorts works, but I vaguely recall seeing it pull source code directly from projects.

MacPorts? I was using NetBSD pkgsrc, which does either source builds or packages from the same system. So, you can lock it at a particular source revision/release and make an official package like a .deb, or do a gentoo/MacPorts style source build.