6 ms·

Show HN: Poetically simple code review on GitHub

66 points by beliu 10y ago

beliu 10y ago
I'm the author of the post and contributed to the CR extension -- I'd love to hear people's feedback! (on the extension, please not the poetry)
- efm 10y ago
  I'd like to try this, github repos permission, just to try it out?
  - beliu 10y ago
    If you want to play around with it, you can explore existing open-source projects like the Go standard library: https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/src/fmt/print.go https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/src/fmt/print.go. For your own repository, it needs permission to set up a webhook to re-process the code whenever a new commit is pushed (otherwise, we can't provide jump-to-def info in the PR).
- jzila 10y ago
  I can't seem to enable indexing for my team's public repos, only my own. Other sites with GitHub login (e.g. Travis) allow you to login as your team rather than your individual user. Can this be enabled?
  - beliu 10y ago
    Thanks for checking it out! We'll investigate this ASAP. Can you shoot me an email at hi@sourcegraph.com and we'll follow up directly? (Just don't want to turn the discussion forum into a support thread.)
brian-armstrong 10y ago
Unfortunately Github's code review is still a far cry from mature review tools like Phab or Gerrit. The code folding in the latter reviewers is always better and leaving inline notes does not apply as individual messages. The reviewee can also more easily reply to each line individually and it is much easier to compare previous diffs. GH's code review tool doesn't seem useful for diffs longer than 20 lines or so. I'm curious why they've never bothered to address this shortcoming.
- piotrkaminski 10y ago
  AFAICT this stems from a different philosophy of what a code review should be for. GitHub appears to believe that code reviews should be very high-level, with most discussion focused on overall design issues and only the latest version of the code, rather than detailed line-by-line reviews of incremental changes. This attitude is shared by at least some number of GitHub users, since many people who visit https://reviewable.io https://reviewable.io (my attempt at a code review tool in the vein of Phab or Gerrit) don't even get why it might be needed. So perhaps GitHub is not entirely wrong... but it certainly opens up a nice niche for providing tools to those who like more thorough reviews.
  - brian-armstrong 10y ago
    In my experience of giving code reviews, I don't see how you would be able to achieve the same quality with just a high-level review. Coding standards and uniformity in code bases are so important, and you just can't achieve that with the high-level review
    - piotrkaminski 10y ago
      I wholeheartedly agree, but clearly other people have different thoughts or priorities. :)
  - aneisf 10y ago
    Eh, I personally find GitHub more useful for line-by-line nitpicking than for high-level, architectural reviews. GitHub PR diffs encourage reading code in an arbitrary top-to-bottom order and don't make it easy to jump around and get the bigger picture. Unless you mean that they don't place any importance on the diff at all, which I might be inclined to believe, but that leaves a lot of the onus on accurate, well-written PR descriptions… which not every developer seems to be capable of.
barakm 10y ago
So, pet peeve time. Every once and a while Sourcegraph comes up again, and I check to see if they've moved away from trying to do their (completely non-free) Fair Source thing. (https://fair.io/ https://fair.io/) This time it seems they have, mostly! None of their code on Github uses it, and the sourcegraph/sourcegraph project itself has gone private. Leading to a broken link on some of their repos (eg, https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph-browser-extensions https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph-browser-extension...) -- but, hey, it's not like it was required to stay open, so, fair enough. Now if they can just update their terms of service to remove any question of it (it's still there), and I'm on board. Because I really want to use this!
- boyter 10y ago
  What exactly is your issue with that licence? I ask having published some code under it recently. I understand that it's "non free" but half the time people on seem to want source because they think they should see it. I am going to put a timebomb in my software though. Each major release will become GPL3 exactly 3 years after its release. Would these terms be acceptable to you?
  - parent5446 10y ago
    The purpose of free software is to protect the freedom of users to use, modify, and distribute the source code they run on their computer. If it doesn't fit that definition, it's considered violating those rights.
    - boyter 10y ago
      I am familiar with the FSF line on this. The same argument applies to any closed source software. However I want to know why OP is against the Fair Source licence, especially if it is time-bombed with a clause that reverts to GPL after a period of time.
  - piotrkaminski 10y ago
    I'm also curious what the issue is. While I understand that a full open source license would be preferable to many, if the choice is between Fair Source and a proprietary code base, is there a rational reason for users to prefer the latter? (Assuming, of course, that the licensor doesn't try to spin the Fair Source as open source in PR, which would be annoying. I assume Sourcegraph doesn't do this, though.)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
arunc 10y ago
I've used FogCreek's Kiln and honestly, their code review is amazing. No other product comes close to it. No context switch and to the point. My current org don't use it and I really miss it. http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/features/code-reviews http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/features/code-reviews
- Motomorgen 10y ago
  I've always been a huge fan of fogcreek software (fogbugz and kiln) but I've never worked anywhere that would use them. Whenever I see places come up with lists of options for new issue tracking and code review tools I never even see them on the list which is a shame
MonkoftheFunk 10y ago
Gitlab support?
- randing89 10y ago
  Bitbucket support?
piotrkubisa 10y ago
It is worth noting that Sourcegraph also published add-on for Mozilla Firefox [1]. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sourcegraph-addon-for-github/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sourcegraph-a...
meesles 10y ago
I appreciate that everything is Haikus :)

66 points by beliu 10y ago

beliu 10y ago

I'm the author of the post and contributed to the CR extension -- I'd love to hear people's feedback! (on the extension, please not the poetry)

efm 10y ago
I'd like to try this, github repos permission, just to try it out?
- beliu 10y ago
  If you want to play around with it, you can explore existing open-source projects like the Go standard library: https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/src/fmt/print.go https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/src/fmt/print.go. For your own repository, it needs permission to set up a webhook to re-process the code whenever a new commit is pushed (otherwise, we can't provide jump-to-def info in the PR).
jzila 10y ago
I can't seem to enable indexing for my team's public repos, only my own. Other sites with GitHub login (e.g. Travis) allow you to login as your team rather than your individual user. Can this be enabled?
- beliu 10y ago
  Thanks for checking it out! We'll investigate this ASAP. Can you shoot me an email at hi@sourcegraph.com and we'll follow up directly? (Just don't want to turn the discussion forum into a support thread.)

brian-armstrong 10y ago

Unfortunately Github's code review is still a far cry from mature review tools like Phab or Gerrit. The code folding in the latter reviewers is always better and leaving inline notes does not apply as individual messages. The reviewee can also more easily reply to each line individually and it is much easier to compare previous diffs. GH's code review tool doesn't seem useful for diffs longer than 20 lines or so. I'm curious why they've never bothered to address this shortcoming.

piotrkaminski 10y ago
AFAICT this stems from a different philosophy of what a code review should be for. GitHub appears to believe that code reviews should be very high-level, with most discussion focused on overall design issues and only the latest version of the code, rather than detailed line-by-line reviews of incremental changes. This attitude is shared by at least some number of GitHub users, since many people who visit https://reviewable.io https://reviewable.io (my attempt at a code review tool in the vein of Phab or Gerrit) don't even get why it might be needed. So perhaps GitHub is not entirely wrong... but it certainly opens up a nice niche for providing tools to those who like more thorough reviews.
- brian-armstrong 10y ago
  In my experience of giving code reviews, I don't see how you would be able to achieve the same quality with just a high-level review. Coding standards and uniformity in code bases are so important, and you just can't achieve that with the high-level review
  - piotrkaminski 10y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree, but clearly other people have different thoughts or priorities. :)
- aneisf 10y ago
  Eh, I personally find GitHub more useful for line-by-line nitpicking than for high-level, architectural reviews. GitHub PR diffs encourage reading code in an arbitrary top-to-bottom order and don't make it easy to jump around and get the bigger picture. Unless you mean that they don't place any importance on the diff at all, which I might be inclined to believe, but that leaves a lot of the onus on accurate, well-written PR descriptions… which not every developer seems to be capable of.

barakm 10y ago

So, pet peeve time. Every once and a while Sourcegraph comes up again, and I check to see if they've moved away from trying to do their (completely non-free) Fair Source thing. (https://fair.io/ https://fair.io/) This time it seems they have, mostly! None of their code on Github uses it, and the sourcegraph/sourcegraph project itself has gone private. Leading to a broken link on some of their repos (eg, https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph-browser-extensions https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph-browser-extension...) -- but, hey, it's not like it was required to stay open, so, fair enough. Now if they can just update their terms of service to remove any question of it (it's still there), and I'm on board. Because I really want to use this!

boyter 10y ago
What exactly is your issue with that licence? I ask having published some code under it recently. I understand that it's "non free" but half the time people on seem to want source because they think they should see it. I am going to put a timebomb in my software though. Each major release will become GPL3 exactly 3 years after its release. Would these terms be acceptable to you?
- parent5446 10y ago
  The purpose of free software is to protect the freedom of users to use, modify, and distribute the source code they run on their computer. If it doesn't fit that definition, it's considered violating those rights.
  - boyter 10y ago
    I am familiar with the FSF line on this. The same argument applies to any closed source software. However I want to know why OP is against the Fair Source licence, especially if it is time-bombed with a clause that reverts to GPL after a period of time.
- piotrkaminski 10y ago
  I'm also curious what the issue is. While I understand that a full open source license would be preferable to many, if the choice is between Fair Source and a proprietary code base, is there a rational reason for users to prefer the latter? (Assuming, of course, that the licensor doesn't try to spin the Fair Source as open source in PR, which would be annoying. I assume Sourcegraph doesn't do this, though.)

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

arunc 10y ago

I've used FogCreek's Kiln and honestly, their code review is amazing. No other product comes close to it. No context switch and to the point. My current org don't use it and I really miss it. http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/features/code-reviews http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/features/code-reviews

Motomorgen 10y ago
I've always been a huge fan of fogcreek software (fogbugz and kiln) but I've never worked anywhere that would use them. Whenever I see places come up with lists of options for new issue tracking and code review tools I never even see them on the list which is a shame

MonkoftheFunk 10y ago

Gitlab support?

randing89 10y ago
Bitbucket support?

piotrkubisa 10y ago

It is worth noting that Sourcegraph also published add-on for Mozilla Firefox [1]. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sourcegraph-addon-for-github/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sourcegraph-a...

meesles 10y ago

I appreciate that everything is Haikus :)