GitHub isn't fun anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#351

Post by jacobparker » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

flohofwoe wrote: post #310

jacobparker wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really hard to understand what you're trying to say here. I use actions a lot. There is no distinction between actions and CI/CD here. The context of this blog post is a set of features that were added to actions (during the beta!) to better support CI/CD workflows. There is no CI/CD "shortcut", like you say, bolted on to actions. The alpha was rougher (and completely different) but that's why it was called an a…

I guess what I wanted to say is that gitlab's CI/CD solution makes more sense because it was specifically designed for CI/CD, while I seriously didn't understand what problems github actions were intended to solve when the beta started. Only roughly a year later a simple CI/CD system was bolted on as an afterthought. This isn't a showstopper, but it makes the overall system needlessly complex and hard to understand i…

Thanks for the reply. What do you mean by a CI/CD system?

I'm not sure what you think was "bolted on" to actions, could you be specific? Features have been added (during the beta and since) but I can't think of anything that could really be described as "bolted on". "bolted on" to me implies some kind of disharmony with other features, weird quirks etc.

> I seriously didn't understand what problems github actions were intended to solve

You can run arbitrary code in response to any GitHub repository event, and also cron jobs and external triggers (a GitHub app can POST to a specific API to trigger those style of workflows).

The code runs with access to GitHub APIs for your repo (it can clone it, leave comments, create new PRs, whatever), and in any event that is associated with a PR a check status gets added to the PR.

This is a pretty general-purpose tool and I think it's easy to imagine the kind of problems people would use it to solve...

> my suspicion is [...]

Honestly it sounds like you're not really familiar with it and have some strongly negative opinions. I'd recommend either giving it another look and putting aside your feelings or working on a more substantive critique...

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#352

Post by bendergarcia » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:32 PM UTC

TeaDrunk wrote: post #332

xwdv wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The master and slave debate was dumb, and reflects a creeping of political correctness into coding and software over the years that I do not look forward to. React’s keywords have been similarly attacked for promoting a “bro” culture with use of words like props or mount. And man-in-the-middle attacks are increasingly being described as person-in-the-middle, at the expense of alliteration. So many other examples out…

I think the debate on language is part of a greater discussion in the field as to the fact that software development and other tech fields are disproportionate in its representation, whether or not it’s a problem, and how to resolve it. These sorts of addresses approaches in language are an easy and immediate signal, like switching from language like policeman, postman, etc. Arguably it is much harder and will face m…

I agree with your point. Engineers love to use signaling as a tool to prove points, yet are conveniently saying signaling doesn’t matter here. It’s signaling that prejudice and racism matter.

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#353

Post by noisem4ker » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

jaekash wrote: post #93

blueflow wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Projects are settting up individual cgit, Gitlab or Bitbucket instances. Roughly half of the projects i contributed to now have their primary upstream outside from Github.

Well on a scale of coolness Bitbucket hits rock bottom, just like all things from Atlassian.

Bitbucket may not be in the spotlight (probably suffering from being Jira's sibling) but in my opinion its web user experience is more pleasant than GitHub's. I'm talking about branch visualization and operations, pull request creation, UI layout flexibility. Bitbucket feels like a sober and useful tool, while GitHub is more like a claustrophobic social network centered on code to me.

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#354

Post by bendergarcia » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

JoBrad wrote: post #335

xwdv wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The master and slave debate was dumb, and reflects a creeping of political correctness into coding and software over the years that I do not look forward to. React’s keywords have been similarly attacked for promoting a “bro” culture with use of words like props or mount. And man-in-the-middle attacks are increasingly being described as person-in-the-middle, at the expense of alliteration. So many other examples out…

This is a bit longer than I intended, but is my point of view, and not intended to dismiss what you’re saying at all. I think it’s easy to dismiss conversations like master/slave whitelist/blacklist as overly PC or childish. I certainly don’t appreciate the overly-preachy feeling I sometimes get from people pushing their point of view. And my nature is to find pleasure in giving The Man the proverbial finger. The sel…

More hacker news users need to read this comment. Thanks for posting.

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#355

Post by tclancy » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

chrisandchips wrote: post #299

lqet wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential: what is up with this inflationary expectation that everything should be "fun" and "exciting" and "thrilling"? I feel like western society as a whole is thinking more and more in terms of a six year old. For adults, there lies incredible satisfaction in mastering any but the most exploitative professions or jobs and fulfilling them dutifully, even if they are be no means "fun".

TBF, I don't think the author is saying that Github needs to be fun, but rather that it used to be and now isn't. It's lost a nice quality that it had.

Agreed, but I think us old farts are complaining the author thinks GitHub has changed while they have not and isn't considering that maybe their perspective shifted during the time as well.

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#356

Post by neutronicus » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

paulchap wrote: post #261

xgenecloud wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot agree more on this. There are two sides to github consumption - active and passive. On passive side - we are happy to stick to basics of git on CLI / IDE and get the job done of a version control. And the site is usually to configure CI/CD and so on. However on active consumption of open source - it is all about discovery of repos relevant to tech you are into and people behind them. It is so amazing to go and…

Your clash with the conventional usage and connotation of these terms was probably intended, but how is browsing repos active consumption (and vice versa)? Isn't creating and collaborating on projects much more active than just looking at interesting stuff?

In grad school I used GitHub as

1. A git-aware Google Drive, where I could stick version-controlled code I wanted to sync between computers and possibly share with colleagues (and also create a paper trail if someone beats me to the bunch publishing something, ha)

2. As a CDN serving open-source projects I depended on, but discovered almost exclusively by other means

None of my GitHub-hosted code ever had a README.md, I never starred anything, and I often never even visited the repos I depended on (their documentation would be hosted elsewhere and copying-and-pasting the GH URL from there was all I needed to do to depend on it). If I visited an Issues page, it was because I got there through googling an error message, not because I went there through GH's UI.

This Drive / CDN usage pattern is sort of the baseline, "passive" level of engagement with GH imo.

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#357

Post by rattray » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

Should the title of this on HN be "The GitHub Trending page isn't fun anymore" ?

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#358

Post by Zenbit_UX » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

_fnhr wrote: post #349

CydeWeys wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these problems you've actually had? I have various stuff on GitHub and none of this has remotely happened to me. What you're describing does not jibe with my lived experience of what GitHub is actually like.

You don't really need to experience it to see how this one day might happen to you. Here is a recent example with RuboCop: https://github.com/rubocop-hq/rubocop/issues/8091 "Cop" suddenly became a problematic word and you can read the comments in that issue thread. Imagine you have some repo like "PinkKitty", and then someone blows himself up dressed in pink and pink becomes a symbol of Jihad or White Supremacy or wh…

Oh wow, that was hard to read and I only made it through the top 10 comments. Getting brigaded because some people are over sensitive must be a horrible feeling.

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#359

Post by bendergarcia » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #301

xwdv wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The master and slave debate was dumb, and reflects a creeping of political correctness into coding and software over the years that I do not look forward to. React’s keywords have been similarly attacked for promoting a “bro” culture with use of words like props or mount. And man-in-the-middle attacks are increasingly being described as person-in-the-middle, at the expense of alliteration. So many other examples out…

It speaks of privilege to think having a debate on this is dumb. It's literally how human beings reconcile issues. You want to outright refuse the possibility that this is an issue to begin with. If you want to keep using your colonialism-inspired language, go ahead and ignore the critics (surely you can't believe github is going to ban you over it) but do not complain about this criticism existing because it makes y…

100% agree with this.

I would say someone will respond (were all not liberal).

And that this is beyond liberal and conservatism. This about signaling and human decency. Words make people uncomfortable and words have history.

Re: GitHub isn't fun anymore

#360

Post by throw_m239339 » Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

People here forget that Microsoft had its own code repository app which I forgot the name of, which was a flop then Microsoft just closed it. I wouldn't be surprised if GitHub ended up the exact same way. On the internet, there is no such thing as "too big to fail".