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How GitHub No Longer Works

zachholman.com

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Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#41

Post by yapcguy »

eknkc wrote: post #11

I love almost eveything GitHub does, and the way they do them. I'm a GitHub fanboy. There it is. I had a similar crush on Google, maybe 6-7 years ago, they lost me somewhere on the road.

What's the big deal about Github? Too much hype.

Whenever you hear about the number of repos, most of them are just forks. In fact, I've created many by accident because Github changed their UI so clicking the icon instantly starts a fork instead of asking for confirmation first. I guess it's good for bumping the numbers up when getting private equity investors interested (cynical, I know).

Security wise, meh. Why would anybody pay to put their closed-source proprietary code onto Github? More holes than a sieve with their Rails setup.

Ok, you want somewhere to stash some private repos, nothing confidential. So why would you pay for Github when you can use Bitbucket for unlimited private repos? Plenty of other providers too.

Their enterprise product? Expensive meh. Atlassian's enterprise Stash is shared/open source when you get a license. You can also just install Gitlab, Gitorious, etc. for free on your own servers.

Github fanboys get excited whenever a big name dumps some code onto Github, like when Linus copied the kernel code over, but it was just a dumping ground while they sorted out server problems of their own. Ubuntu uses Bazaar and Trac, Linux Kernel development uses git on their own servers, KDE is over at Gitorious. Heck, there are some people still using Darcs and SVN.

Github is popular but it's not essential unless crave social karma points and your name/handle in lights.

Sorry for the rant like writing, lots of thoughts above, but I just never saw what the big deal about Github was. A good business and a slick offering but it's not going to suddenly transform your software projects or your abilities as a programmer.

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#42

Post by silverbax88 »

carbon8 wrote: post #24
runako wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> staging servers so non-technical staff can check the work of "their" developers Surely staging servers have some other benefits? Maybe some teams consider running code on the production setup for the first time to be risky to their customers? Perhaps some teams have encountered differences between dev laptops and production servers, which run on different OS/memory/etc. combinations?

Short-lived staging environments (eg, a temporary clone of a production environment) certainly have a place, such as when making architectural changes, but these kinds of changes are generally not happening on a regular basis if you are making incremental changes and doing continuous deployment. I'm sure that there are companies that have a valid engineering need for perpetual staging environments rather than feature…

Staging servers are not only a great idea, they are a life saver (read: job saver/career saver) when you are running large, mission critical apps.

I push things right into production when I'm playing with a new site. I use a staging server when I'm working on something serious.

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#43

Post by canistr »

I'm always skeptical when companies say they have "no managers" and are a completely flat organization with 100+ employees. I don't pretend to fully understand organizational theory, but I take it that at some point, there will be someone doing the "management" work. Whether that's someone with the title of ninja/hacker/product guy/project manager/director/CEO/BDFL

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#44

Post by [deleted] »

diek wrote: post #30
carbon8 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short-lived staging environments (eg, a temporary clone of a production environment) certainly have a place, such as when making architectural changes, but these kinds of changes are generally not happening on a regular basis if you are making incremental changes and doing continuous deployment. I'm sure that there are companies that have a valid engineering need for perpetual staging environments rather than feature…

You honestly can't think of good engineering reasons not to push new code directly into production?

[deleted]

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#45

Post by jbarnette »

skrebbel wrote: post #20
jcutrell wrote: post #8

Love these talks from Zach Holman. Brilliant work happening at GitHub, of course. Seeing the rise of the "primarily responsible person" is huge for us in our small company - we've found it's natural to work this way, without a label. Keep on putting out these fantastic slides, Zach.

Admittedly I'm cynical, but how is a "primarily responsible person" different from a lead developer? It feels a bit like you're just calling things different to avoid manager-like names.

We use PRP in any situation where someone explicitly takes responsibility for an outcome, no matter whether the outcome is some software or a clean office or an accurate tax return.

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#46

Post by nocman »

adamb_ wrote: post #18

Please remove "[video]" from the title. As of right now there's no video (there's a placeholder saying it's coming soon.)

Actually, I'm kind of glad that the link said "video". Because I might not have clicked it if it didn't, and I almost just closed the tab when I saw the video wasn't available.

Amusingly, I'm also glad that the video wasn't available yet, because I clicked through the slides, and I suspect I got the gist of the talk at just about the right density for my interest (and it took very little time).

Funny how things work out like that sometimes.

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#47

Post by jcutrell »

skrebbel wrote: post #20
jcutrell wrote: post #8

Love these talks from Zach Holman. Brilliant work happening at GitHub, of course. Seeing the rise of the "primarily responsible person" is huge for us in our small company - we've found it's natural to work this way, without a label. Keep on putting out these fantastic slides, Zach.

Admittedly I'm cynical, but how is a "primarily responsible person" different from a lead developer? It feels a bit like you're just calling things different to avoid manager-like names.

Sometimes the primarily responsible person isn't a developer on a given team. Especially at smaller firms, hats of responsibility are passed around to multiple members of the team, regardless of that member's particular talents/core competencies.

We call them project champions. I work in an agency model, so we have many clients who have many projects. The project champion usually knows the client, their wishes, etc - acts like a product owner (if you're familiar with the term from agile methods).

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#49

Post by aliakbarkhan »

TylerE wrote: post #36
pekk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems Google has have nothing to do with Facebook being better, or G+ being empty or whatever. Facebook is terrible.

And G+ is worse because the thing with Facebook...I'm never FORCED to reveal my Facebook identity on the open web. G+ doesn't really give me that option.

You've clearly never been to one of the many sites that insists you log in through Facebook.

Re: How GitHub No Longer Works

#50

Post by gaius »

skrebbel wrote: post #20
jcutrell wrote: post #8

Love these talks from Zach Holman. Brilliant work happening at GitHub, of course. Seeing the rise of the "primarily responsible person" is huge for us in our small company - we've found it's natural to work this way, without a label. Keep on putting out these fantastic slides, Zach.

Admittedly I'm cynical, but how is a "primarily responsible person" different from a lead developer? It feels a bit like you're just calling things different to avoid manager-like names.

I am reminded of the Syndicalists in 1930s Spain. After their mini-revolution, they abolished money, hooray! The next day they introduced "tokens" so they could get anything actually done...
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