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Ask HN: which obscure Github projects have you found useful?

58 points by mcgyver 16y ago

There is a lot of great stuff on Github but it's hard to know where to start looking. I'm wondering if HN had any recommendations for useful tool suites or other noteworthy projects.

mikey_p 16y ago
I've really enjoyed skimming through other users 'dotfiles' or similarly named repos. It's a great way to find some small tips or shortcuts to make my day to day work more efficient, etc, without reading a long blog post about why some technique is the 'only sane, correct, right, proper way' and you'd have to be crazy to try anything else. I.e. great tips without the commentary.
- darkhelmetlive 16y ago
  Lol I found a bug in Ryan Tomayko's dotfiles when he put them up. https://github.com/rtomayko/dotfiles/commit/d462da485294b5168687b20518881a50dea0b209 https://github.com/rtomayko/dotfiles/commit/d462da485294b516...
mojombo 16y ago
Just in case you missed it, we have an "Explore GitHub" page that should get you started with some repos that you may not have heard of before: https://github.com/explore https://github.com/explore
- mcgyver 16y ago
  The explore page offers a great snapshot. The search page is totally awesome too (seriously, it works really well) but only when you are looking for something in particular. It feels like there is a mind-boggling amount of potentially useful things sitting there that no one ever knows to play with because the people behind the projects aren't very good at PR or aren't looking for high usage of their product. I guess the main barrier to testing out projects/apps is the difficulty of installation. You have to know you want the product a lot to go through with the effort to get it up and going. I guess that's why recommendations can be a good guide to making sure it's worth the effort.
hecticjeff 16y ago
http://thechangelog.com/ http://thechangelog.com/ is a great blog to follow for interesting GitHub projects, it also powers parts of the "Explore GitHub" page that @mojombo mentioned.
kilian 16y ago
I'm a big fan of zen coding, it's a way of writing HTML and CSS by shortcuts and expanding them, cross-IDE: https://github.com/sergeche/zen-coding https://github.com/sergeche/zen-coding it has sped up my html writing considerably. If you're using Django with a MySQL heavy application, consider django-stored-procedures (written by a colleague of mine) https://github.com/jeroeng/stored-procedures https://github.com/jeroeng/stored-procedures
jwpage 16y ago
The latest one I discovered is Slidedown: a simple tool to generate HTML slides (with syntax highlighting) from a markdown document. Came in handy when I had to whip up a presentation for a recent meetup.
evanrmurphy 16y ago
Not sure how obscure these would be here (I first learned about them on Hacker News), but I've found Backbone.js and Underscore.js to be extraordinary projects. Links: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/ http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/ http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/ http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/
- jashkenas 16y ago
  For a bit more information -- Backbone.js and Underscore.js are open source components of DocumentCloud, funded by the Knight Foundation's News Challenge, and are used to build this: http://cl.ly/3N0Z http://cl.ly/3N0Z ... and this: http://documents.latimes.com/la-county-plastic-bag-ban/ http://documents.latimes.com/la-county-plastic-bag-ban/
woodall 16y ago
Gordon; An open source Flash™ runtime written in pure JavaScript EXAMPLE: http://paulirish.com/work/gordon/demos/ http://paulirish.com/work/gordon/demos/ GIT: https://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon https://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon
bmelton 16y ago
What.js https://github.com/entmike/What https://github.com/entmike/What -- I've been playing with this, written by a buddy of mine. It's a Node.js-based application server, complete with an HttpServlet implementation.
amanuel 16y ago
AppSales-Mobile to an amazing and well supported find to track your iOS app sales. https://github.com/omz/AppSales-Mobile https://github.com/omz/AppSales-Mobile On the Mac Brotherbard's Gitx fork is very cool. https://github.com/brotherbard/gitx https://github.com/brotherbard/gitx GitFlow - takes your Git skills to the next level. https://github.com/nvie/gitflow https://github.com/nvie/gitflow
alanh 16y ago
qlmarkdown. It enables OS X to show (pretty/formatted) Markdown documents in Quick Look. I also forked something called Add-Another for replicating parts of web forms (when you need to collect 0-n things from a user, e.g. emergency contacts, images, etc.)
icco 16y ago
I found isaac to be pretty cool. I had to fork it and add features because it's not maintained too well, but a neat idea. https://github.com/ichverstehe/isaac https://github.com/ichverstehe/isaac
endgame 16y ago
libtelnet: A nifty little library that makes it easy to speak proper telnet. https://github.com/elanthis/libtelnet https://github.com/elanthis/libtelnet
stevewilhelm 16y ago
Wukong, a Ruby-based Hadoop streaming framework. http://mrflip.github.com/wukong http://mrflip.github.com/wukong
Jach 16y ago
Lots of goodies here: https://github.com/MarcWeber https://github.com/MarcWeber
z0rk 16y ago
http://github.com/rohityadav/cmakeqt http://github.com/rohityadav/cmakeqt a qt-cmake example, with features like cross compiling, packaging, translations etc.
thomaz 16y ago
Vim-inspired file manager for the console https://github.com/hut/ranger https://github.com/hut/ranger
sr3d 16y ago
self-plug: GithubFinder http://sr3d.github.com/GithubFinder http://sr3d.github.com/GithubFinder Much better code/repo browsing for Github repos, especially with the bookmarklet or the Userscript plugin.

58 points by mcgyver 16y ago

There is a lot of great stuff on Github but it's hard to know where to start looking. I'm wondering if HN had any recommendations for useful tool suites or other noteworthy projects.

mikey_p 16y ago

I've really enjoyed skimming through other users 'dotfiles' or similarly named repos. It's a great way to find some small tips or shortcuts to make my day to day work more efficient, etc, without reading a long blog post about why some technique is the 'only sane, correct, right, proper way' and you'd have to be crazy to try anything else. I.e. great tips without the commentary.

darkhelmetlive 16y ago
Lol I found a bug in Ryan Tomayko's dotfiles when he put them up. https://github.com/rtomayko/dotfiles/commit/d462da485294b5168687b20518881a50dea0b209 https://github.com/rtomayko/dotfiles/commit/d462da485294b516...

mojombo 16y ago

Just in case you missed it, we have an "Explore GitHub" page that should get you started with some repos that you may not have heard of before: https://github.com/explore https://github.com/explore

mcgyver 16y ago
The explore page offers a great snapshot. The search page is totally awesome too (seriously, it works really well) but only when you are looking for something in particular. It feels like there is a mind-boggling amount of potentially useful things sitting there that no one ever knows to play with because the people behind the projects aren't very good at PR or aren't looking for high usage of their product. I guess the main barrier to testing out projects/apps is the difficulty of installation. You have to know you want the product a lot to go through with the effort to get it up and going. I guess that's why recommendations can be a good guide to making sure it's worth the effort.

hecticjeff 16y ago

http://thechangelog.com/ http://thechangelog.com/ is a great blog to follow for interesting GitHub projects, it also powers parts of the "Explore GitHub" page that @mojombo mentioned.

kilian 16y ago

I'm a big fan of zen coding, it's a way of writing HTML and CSS by shortcuts and expanding them, cross-IDE: https://github.com/sergeche/zen-coding https://github.com/sergeche/zen-coding it has sped up my html writing considerably. If you're using Django with a MySQL heavy application, consider django-stored-procedures (written by a colleague of mine) https://github.com/jeroeng/stored-procedures https://github.com/jeroeng/stored-procedures

jwpage 16y ago

The latest one I discovered is Slidedown: a simple tool to generate HTML slides (with syntax highlighting) from a markdown document. Came in handy when I had to whip up a presentation for a recent meetup.

evanrmurphy 16y ago

Not sure how obscure these would be here (I first learned about them on Hacker News), but I've found Backbone.js and Underscore.js to be extraordinary projects. Links: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/ http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/ http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/ http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/

jashkenas 16y ago
For a bit more information -- Backbone.js and Underscore.js are open source components of DocumentCloud, funded by the Knight Foundation's News Challenge, and are used to build this: http://cl.ly/3N0Z http://cl.ly/3N0Z ... and this: http://documents.latimes.com/la-county-plastic-bag-ban/ http://documents.latimes.com/la-county-plastic-bag-ban/

woodall 16y ago

Gordon; An open source Flash™ runtime written in pure JavaScript EXAMPLE: http://paulirish.com/work/gordon/demos/ http://paulirish.com/work/gordon/demos/ GIT: https://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon https://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon

bmelton 16y ago

What.js https://github.com/entmike/What https://github.com/entmike/What -- I've been playing with this, written by a buddy of mine. It's a Node.js-based application server, complete with an HttpServlet implementation.

amanuel 16y ago

AppSales-Mobile to an amazing and well supported find to track your iOS app sales. https://github.com/omz/AppSales-Mobile https://github.com/omz/AppSales-Mobile On the Mac Brotherbard's Gitx fork is very cool. https://github.com/brotherbard/gitx https://github.com/brotherbard/gitx GitFlow - takes your Git skills to the next level. https://github.com/nvie/gitflow https://github.com/nvie/gitflow

alanh 16y ago

qlmarkdown. It enables OS X to show (pretty/formatted) Markdown documents in Quick Look. I also forked something called Add-Another for replicating parts of web forms (when you need to collect 0-n things from a user, e.g. emergency contacts, images, etc.)

icco 16y ago

I found isaac to be pretty cool. I had to fork it and add features because it's not maintained too well, but a neat idea. https://github.com/ichverstehe/isaac https://github.com/ichverstehe/isaac

endgame 16y ago

libtelnet: A nifty little library that makes it easy to speak proper telnet. https://github.com/elanthis/libtelnet https://github.com/elanthis/libtelnet

stevewilhelm 16y ago

Wukong, a Ruby-based Hadoop streaming framework. http://mrflip.github.com/wukong http://mrflip.github.com/wukong

Jach 16y ago

Lots of goodies here: https://github.com/MarcWeber https://github.com/MarcWeber

z0rk 16y ago

http://github.com/rohityadav/cmakeqt http://github.com/rohityadav/cmakeqt a qt-cmake example, with features like cross compiling, packaging, translations etc.

thomaz 16y ago

Vim-inspired file manager for the console https://github.com/hut/ranger https://github.com/hut/ranger

sr3d 16y ago

self-plug: GithubFinder http://sr3d.github.com/GithubFinder http://sr3d.github.com/GithubFinder Much better code/repo browsing for Github repos, especially with the bookmarklet or the Userscript plugin.