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New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

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Re: New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than likely, this is a red flag, not an achievement; or at least one would hope it is.

Only if you can't imagine working on a project by yourself...

Depends on the criteria. Do automated reviews count?

I set up build+test via GH actions and have GitHub run them on PR's. And make all changes through PR's.

This not only prevents "forgot to run tests" type accidents during regular development, it also helps me when I come back to a hobby project months later, and it lets me confidently do small changes (think version bumps) directly through GitHub's editor, which saves a bunch of time.

And when, against the odds, I actually do get a contribution, the infra is already there and it really cuts down my turnaround time to get it merged, bump the version and deploy the release.

Of course if a single direct push yields you the badge then I guess pretty much every solo dev gets it sooner or later. But that indirectly turns it back into a good badge, right? "Independent enough to have a life outside a standardized corporate process"?

Re: New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

#42
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. LinkedIn doesn't specialize in software, it's a glorified résumé database. We all know that résumés don't really tell you whether an engineer is going to do good work for you; if they did, the only purpose of engineering interviews would be for culture fit. At the same time, even if all of an engineer's contributions were fully in the open and linked to from their GitHub profile, it's all a bit too much fo…

I think you are riding a horse that is driven by a cart :D. Rather than looking at github from the perspective of hiring managers, look at it from the perspective of users. If the feature does not seem to serve them, it might not be a good one. If github is a tool, then the words hiring manager probably shouldn't appear. I don't think of "what will my product person think?" when I use grep. Also, didn't we do this wh…

> Rather than looking at github from the perspective of hiring managers, look at it from the perspective of users.

Why? Everybody I've talked to who's considered alternatives and still uses GitHub for projects that don't have to be on GitHub does it because they're looking at it from the perspective of potential employers. (Or because they like GitHub's Projects feature enough, but those are rarer.)

Re: New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

#44

This is not stupid. It's not a waste of time. It doesn't matter if this leads to a proliferation of shit contributions. It doesn't matter if it encourages bad practices. It doesn't matter if you don't like it. It's smart. This is WHY Microsoft bought Github. Software is eating the world and Github is where most of the eating happens. There are many career paths that require you to live on Twitter or LinkedIn or whate…

You've hit the nail on the head. Most people (at least in my social circles) don't like Linkedin, but are on the platform all the same. If an external service becomes the go-to validation for one metric or another, people will use it to try and get an edge, and eventually it means that you need to play the game to get your foot in the door. As an anecdotal example, I once didn't hear back after applying for a role, and when I sent them a followup email they said they didn't think I was a real person because I wasn't on Linkedin. Cue me now being on Linkedin.

Given that Stack Overflow has shut down their (very popular) jobs board along with the relevant developer profiles [0], this seems like a great time for Github to try and grab a part of the pie.

[0] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/415293/sunsetting-j...

Re: New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

#45

Can we please stop turning everything into a social media experience? Why the constant need for personal validation / ego gratification? It seems like almost every tool or platform these days needs a friends feature, bragging badges or other form of social validation.

I like how this is the most upvoted comment

Re: New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

#46

Can we please stop turning everything into a social media experience? Why the constant need for personal validation / ego gratification? It seems like almost every tool or platform these days needs a friends feature, bragging badges or other form of social validation.

I agree with the sentiment, but that ship has sailed a long time ago. The TikTok-fication of the world is inevitable.

Re: New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you can't imagine working on a project by yourself...

Depends on the criteria. Do automated reviews count? I set up build+test via GH actions and have GitHub run them on PR's. And make all changes through PR's. This not only prevents "forgot to run tests" type accidents during regular development, it also helps me when I come back to a hobby project months later, and it lets me confidently do small changes (think version bumps) directly through GitHub's editor, which sa…

Actions can still provide the feedback even without a PR if you trigger on push, you just don't have a gate like PR for contribution. I do similar to what you're describing and would recommend a feedback loop for build/test 100% of the time.

I just don't think merging without review equates is an absolute negative depending on the situation, in this case no reviewers exist outside of myself and from my perspective this is how a lot projects start, someone just goes for it and starts committing! Yolo...

Re: New GitHub Profile Badges Beta

#50
post #21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, GitHub's original slogan was "Social Coding".

True, but why do people think they need validation to collaborate?

Maybe this is a hot take, but… I like being validated? It feels good to receive positive feedback, and a ton of my life is structured to ensure positive feedback loops for things I want to incentivize myself to do.

I’ve definitely contributed more PRs during Hacktoberfest to get a t-shirt. I’ve done Strava runs when I might have otherwise skipped a day and been excited to see a new achievement.

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