Give up GitHub: The time has come • Hacker News Board

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#261

Post by sreevisakh » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

avgcorrection wrote: post #174

dcz_self wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can figure out how to send you a patch set via email (see my Linux kernel contributions), but if I can avoid doing that, sure as heck I will. Your project must be really important to me, or I have to get paid. As for the reason, it's simple: the process of submitting patches sucks. I wrote about it: https://dcz_self.gitlab.io/posts/git-botch-email

Seconded. It can be a lot of effort to just set up a client which won’t mangle patchset emails. Maybe Mutt etc. users get that for free, though.

You could mail patches as plain text attachments, if there are concerns about the clients mangling them. You could also try some easier plain-text clients instead of mutt. Claws mail is a simple GUI based one.

[1] https://www.claws-mail.org/

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#262

Post by stickfigure » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

mpol wrote: post #210

comex wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because there is a (small) risk of leaking confidential information through its output. But that's not as damning as it sounds. First, we know Copilot, if given the right prompt and told to autocomplete repeatedly without any manual input, can regurgitate bits of code seen many times in many different repositories, like the famous Quake fast inverse square root function and the text of licenses. That doesn't…

> Perhaps because there is a (small) risk of leaking confidential information through its output. If Microsoft/Github ever made that argument, that also means that when Copilot is using GPL software as input, the output can only be released under the GPL.

A short passphrase or key is not copyrightable, but definitely confidential.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#263

Post by ratww » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

jlkuester7 wrote: post #234

wilde wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boring answer is probably something along the lines of “copilot was trained by employees of OpenAI who aren’t technically MS employees”. When I worked at MS you had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get access to code from other orgs. I can’t imagine what BS you’d need to do to give access to a vendor.

> you had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get access to code from other orgs This may be the dumbest move from M$ that I have read on this thread! Sure, companies need to protect their private IP, but this really feels like creating unnecessary friction for no good reason...

> creating unnecessary friction for no good reason

That's definitely something that most large corporations do.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#264

Post by sreevisakh » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

u801e wrote: post #106

NoGravitas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally the ones I don't mind losing. If anyone can't figure out how to send a git pull request or patchset by email, I'm happy for them to email me with questions on how to, which I will answer as best I can.

Drew DeVault created this[1] to help people start using git send-email. I'm not sure if it works for the purpose of contributing to your project, but it may save you from having to explain the same thing repeatedly :) [1] https://git-send-email.io/

I want to add the guide to submitting patches for the Linux kernel [1]. It contains a bit more finer points, in addition to what's on the site you linked.

[1] https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/submitting-pa...

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#265

Post by mgkimsal » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

beardedetim wrote: post #119

dijit wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually an excellent way of explaining it. Though it's frustrating that it's porn hub specifically, because referencing pornography can be awkward or impractical in workplace contexts.

GrubHub?

StubHub?

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#266

Post by ratww » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:27 PM UTC

widjit wrote: post #113

ladberg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I'd agree, every CS student at my school had to take a class where one of the projects was implementing a mini version of git from scratch. And even before that class there was at least one lecture dedicated to git in the intro class.

the only significant difference I've seen in brand-new devs from bootcamps vs CS programs is the devs from bootcamps are somewhat aware that they have a lot of learning to do

Not my experience. I found a lot of hubris in the few last batches of bootcamp devs I interviewed or worked with.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#267

Post by shreyshnaccount » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

comex wrote: post #202

josephcsible wrote: post #122

> If it is, as you claim, permissible to train the model (and allow users to generate code based on that model) on any code whatsoever and not be bound by any licensing terms, why did you choose to only train Copilot's model on FOSS? For example, why are your Microsoft Windows and Office codebases not in your training set? This is my favorite question about Copilot ever.

Perhaps because there is a (small) risk of leaking confidential information through its output. But that's not as damning as it sounds. First, we know Copilot, if given the right prompt and told to autocomplete repeatedly without any manual input, can regurgitate bits of code seen many times in many different repositories, like the famous Quake fast inverse square root function and the text of licenses. That doesn't…

I tried using copilot and it literally attributed the function i was writing to someone else even before I could start writing a line. its been updated since and these errors are rare now, but still exist

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#268

Post by avgcorrection » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

sreevisakh wrote: post #261

avgcorrection wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. It can be a lot of effort to just set up a client which won’t mangle patchset emails. Maybe Mutt etc. users get that for free, though.

You could mail patches as plain text attachments, if there are concerns about the clients mangling them. You could also try some easier plain-text clients instead of mutt. Claws mail is a simple GUI based one. [1] https://www.claws-mail.org/

But projects like Git do inline patches. I wouldn’t have the guts to break a convention like that when trying to submit something to the mailing list.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#269

Post by shreyshnaccount » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

travisgriggs wrote: post #5

> For its part, Git was designed specifically to make software development distributed without a centralized site. Just yesterday I had to explain the basic premise/history of Git to a young intern. I had asked him if he was using Git to manage his little pet project the company gave him to play with. “No”, he replied, he didn’t know what the company’s policy was to posting code in public on GitHub. As I explained to…

well, they were novices, they gotta learn somewhere right? while I admit git being different from Github is pretty basic knowledge and it might be expected that they know that, but this seems rather harsh considering that using git isn't a skill cs degrees cover.

Re: Give up GitHub: The time has come

#270

Post by zelphirkalt » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #173

ipaddr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite answer is: if you included Microsoft source code the quality of suggestions drops below viable product.

The reasons that Windows is awful have nothing to do with code quality. Windows is awful because of intentional choices Microsoft made (e.g., bloatware that gets reinstalled with every update, mandatory Microsoft accounts, and mandatory telemetry).

Whenever I have to start windows 10, I still see the same kind of bugs, that were present on XP. One example: They seem to be simply unable to fix the icons "near the clock", which are still shown, when some app has been killed, until you hover over them. Things like that, but of course also lots of stuff that affects people more in form of annoyances, making every action take at least twice as long as on GNU/Linux distros I run. It only takes minutes, and I am already frustrated with the system, because everything takes so long to do.