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The black market in GitHub stars

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Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#11

Post by nemothekid »

johnea wrote: post #2

I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features. I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting. The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership. An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook..…

>The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership.

Github's original 2008 tagline was "social code hosting". I'd argue the social nature is what made github, as well as git, popular.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#12

Post by wizerdrobe »

siva7 wrote: post #10

Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.

Here in a flyover type state in the US:

It never served a a cheat-code, or a skip-the-line or any such goodness. What it did was serve as a conversation starter, “I see project Y in strange language X. What is the story there?”

That’s your cue to sell yourself, your skills, your experience, etc.

I could never know, but perhaps having it also got me on the short-list for an interview to begin with?

I would say GitHub has featured in at about half of my interviews.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#13

Post by flutas »

nocommandline wrote: post #8
kelsey9876543 wrote: post #6

it won't help, when given a github profile most people will go read your actual commits we do not give a darn about stars

A significant number of folks (especially non-professional developers) make a choice on which library/project to use based on the number of GitHub stars. For these people, the more number of stars, the more it means the 'package is good/useful'. You can argue it isn't the best/most effective way but it's quite common.

I find myself (as a professional software dev) trying to break that mindset frequently, especially on GitHub, when looking at libraries to use for a task if there's more than 1.

What I try to focus on now is more so the commit and release cadence / frequency since in my mind frequent activity means it's more likely to have bugs fixed and security issues handled.

Would love to hear other's input on this.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#14

Post by mlsu »

flutas wrote: post #13
nocommandline wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant number of folks (especially non-professional developers) make a choice on which library/project to use based on the number of GitHub stars. For these people, the more number of stars, the more it means the 'package is good/useful'. You can argue it isn't the best/most effective way but it's quite common.

I find myself (as a professional software dev) trying to break that mindset frequently, especially on GitHub, when looking at libraries to use for a task if there's more than 1. What I try to focus on now is more so the commit and release cadence / frequency since in my mind frequent activity means it's more likely to have bugs fixed and security issues handled. Would love to hear other's input on this.

The 5-second test:

- look at "latest commit." 4 years ago is not good. 2 days ago is good.

The 30-second test:

- total number of commits. number of active branches. number of PRs.

The 5 minute test:

- are there PRs? How many open PRs vs how many closed? Is there lively discussion in PRs?

- how many different contributors are there? 1 contributor is OK (and often means that the library will be very coherent) but multiple "main" contributors is better.

- are there good code examples available? Are there commits that indicate that examples are kept up to date?

I have never ever used stars to evaluate anything.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#15

Post by gorkish »

johnea wrote: post #2

I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features. I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting. The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership. An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook..…

Github became popular because it was SourceForge without all the bullshit.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#16

Post by hotnfresh »

mlsu wrote: post #14
flutas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find myself (as a professional software dev) trying to break that mindset frequently, especially on GitHub, when looking at libraries to use for a task if there's more than 1. What I try to focus on now is more so the commit and release cadence / frequency since in my mind frequent activity means it's more likely to have bugs fixed and security issues handled. Would love to hear other's input on this.

The 5-second test: - look at "latest commit." 4 years ago is not good. 2 days ago is good. The 30-second test: - total number of commits. number of active branches. number of PRs. The 5 minute test: - are there PRs? How many open PRs vs how many closed? Is there lively discussion in PRs? - how many different contributors are there? 1 contributor is OK (and often means that the library will be very coherent) but multi…

I often use stars to pick out which projects to evaluate and only start looking at very-low-star repos if none of the highest-star ones look decent.

Evaluating each repo does happen as you wrote, though.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#17

Post by eschneider »

siva7 wrote: post #10

Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.

When I get a resume for someone I've been asked to interview, I'll certainly look at any github profiles, and if there's something relevant there, I'll often use their project as a basis for whatever coding exercise we do, such as extend this class to add X functionality. Or use it as a basis for design questions.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#18

Post by hotnfresh »

gorkish wrote: post #15
johnea wrote: post #2

I beg to differ on the concept that github became popular because it integrated social media features. I would assert that github became popular because it offered free online git repo hosting. The social media stuff was only long after the fact, and accelerated under M$ ownership. An old adage was: Every s/w evolves until it becomes an email client The modern version is: Every s/w evolves until it becomes facebook..…

Github became popular because it was SourceForge without all the bullshit.

Yep. For those who don’t do much open source collab, it entered our lives as an open source project discovery, evaluation, and distribution system. Now, of course, it’s also where lots of us push our code that we write for pay, but that’s why we started visiting.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#19

Post by arghwhat »

siva7 wrote: post #10

Is this really a thing or just some local phenomena? I can't remember that the github profile played a role in any hiring committee i've been part of (western europe) as people understood that most of the experienced software developers aren't active open source contributors.

I can anecdotally attest to contact and employment happening solely based on Github profile - without it containing anything impressive - in Scandinavia, as well as a few cases where the profile was used as input in a regular interview process.

Do what you want with that info.

Re: The black market in GitHub stars

#20

Post by yumraj »

mlsu wrote: post #14
flutas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find myself (as a professional software dev) trying to break that mindset frequently, especially on GitHub, when looking at libraries to use for a task if there's more than 1. What I try to focus on now is more so the commit and release cadence / frequency since in my mind frequent activity means it's more likely to have bugs fixed and security issues handled. Would love to hear other's input on this.

The 5-second test: - look at "latest commit." 4 years ago is not good. 2 days ago is good. The 30-second test: - total number of commits. number of active branches. number of PRs. The 5 minute test: - are there PRs? How many open PRs vs how many closed? Is there lively discussion in PRs? - how many different contributors are there? 1 contributor is OK (and often means that the library will be very coherent) but multi…

You forgot issues.

Open vs Closed, and meat in the issues. Will tell if people are actually using something.

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