GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#1

Post by Manishearth » Thu, May 28, 2015, 3:13 AM UTC

GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem
manishearth.github.io

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#2

Post by frewsxcv » Thu, May 28, 2015, 3:51 AM UTC

I can attest to this methodology for increasing self-motivation for OSS contributions. Great post!

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#3

Post by Manishearth » Thu, May 28, 2015, 3:54 AM UTC

frewsxcv wrote: post #2

I can attest to this methodology for increasing self-motivation for OSS contributions. Great post!

:D

So that's why you went on a fuzz-all-the-things spree on Servo!

(Btw, thank you for that fuzzing spree -- you got some interesting use cases for afl-rs and found bugs and now I want to do the same!)

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#4

Post by non-sense » Thu, May 28, 2015, 4:56 AM UTC

Manishearth wrote: post #3

frewsxcv wrote: post #2

I can attest to this methodology for increasing self-motivation for OSS contributions. Great post!

:D So that's why you went on a fuzz-all-the-things spree on Servo! (Btw, thank you for that fuzzing spree -- you got some interesting use cases for afl-rs and found bugs and now I want to do the same!)

Great to see you and other work on rust-lang. It looks like a great open community!

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#5

Post by daurnimator » Thu, May 28, 2015, 4:59 AM UTC

I wonder how you can go on that long.

You can easily see in mine (https://github.com/daurnimator) when I went on vacation for 3 weeks in November/December last year.

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#6

Post by monksy » Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:06 AM UTC

Its great to have a goal to increase participation. However, this seems to be a point of vanity than something beneficial at that point.

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#7

Post by VieElm » Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:09 AM UTC

Using a lack of GitHub contributions as a way to disqualify candidates sounds like a really bad idea. Does anyone do that? Seems like a strawman argument.

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#8

Post by Manishearth » Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:15 AM UTC

daurnimator wrote: post #5

I wonder how you can go on that long. You can easily see in mine ( https://github.com/daurnimator ) when I went on vacation for 3 weeks in November/December last year.

Well, last summer I was doing GSoC so it was easy.

During the semester I have to stay put anyway. Any weekend excursions I would be taking a laptop with me for studying (we have a lot of coursework, and I usually am overloaded with stuff so I need to allocate at least some weekend time for coursework) so I would squeeze in some programming and push it when I got access to internet again. Programming is a refreshing change from physics coursework (which I like too, but it gets tedious) and other stuff, so it's easy to do it daily.

When I went on vacation to the Sunderbans I was filing issues and making minor fixes from my phone.

This summer my internship is elsewhere, and while I do still contribute to Rust/Servo because I love doing it, as mentioned in the post I'll probably forget one day or just take a break.

At this point, if I go on vacation or something I'm just going to drop it -- as I mentioned I don't care about the streak anymore and what I gained from it won't go away unless I take a really long break.

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#9

Post by dustincoates » Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:18 AM UTC

I've written in the past about how I love streaks as a motivating tool.[0] It gives a motivation to get up and do something, when you'd rather do nothing.

One thing I try to do on goals that require an action, is not to add stipulations to it like the OP eventually did in the beginning. If you make the hurdle too large you're more likely to break the streak and more likely to fall into inaction, so allowing a small contribution to continue the streak is a net positive. For me, I want to study French every day and I accept that somedays I'm going to be so busy with work that I can only afford five minutes. That's fine--it keeps me motivated the next day and that day likely won't be just five minutes.

I've found it doesn't work for everyone. I personally see it as a game/challenge whereas when I speak to other people they find it overwhelming. As always, there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to motivation. It looks like it worked for OP to get to where they wanted to go, though.

[0] http://blog.hellopico.com/the-seinfeld-method-dont-break-the...

Re: GitHub streak: End-game and post-mortem

#10

Post by Manishearth » Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:19 AM UTC

monksy wrote: post #6

Its great to have a goal to increase participation. However, this seems to be a point of vanity than something beneficial at that point.

Well, initially I started off by having a friendly competition with a senior of mine (both of us FOSS enthusiasts) after noticing my own inadvertant-streak. At that point it was less about vanity and more about competition and fun. Of course, when I reached 50 I was more than happy to boast about it :P

At this point -- keeping it up would be mainly a vanity thing (but I'm not consciously doing so). For the past few weeks I haven't even thought about it unless I open my profile and notice ("has it been that long? Wow."). It's just continued with no conscious support -- I used to sometimes think "hey, did I forget to commit today" (the answer would usually be no, but the point is that I was still asking myself this). Now I don't. Not because I know I've committed, but because the streak doesn't matter.