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Never had any "fun" with github either. I have had my account since 2013 and I've just learned about this "trending page" thing. Can anyone explain what's it us

Never had any "fun" with github either. I have had my account since 2013 and I've just learned about this "trending page" thing. Can anyone explain what's it useful for?

Insanity 6y ago
YMMV, but for me it does tend to show interesting projects that I otherwise would not have learned about.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  This may also highlight one of the contrasts between my approach, and that of many of today’s engineers. I am almost exclusively a Principal author of my work; with dozens of repos, and six figures of LoC (probably seven figures, if we include the code not available in public repos). I think I may have one forked repo; an embedded Web server library that I needed to tweak a bit to make work for my ffmpeg wrapper project. This is not necessarily a good thing. By authoring my own code, I limit my scope. People who rely heavily on dependencies can have awesome results. But they need to be very careful about the provenance and quality of these dependencies. Dependency discovery is an important part of the vetting process. If we have choices, we don’t need to settle for second-best. Also, I know that, for many folks, learning is a driver for repo discovery. A lot of forks can indicate an inquisitive and open-minded approach to software development. I do support it; but it is not how I work.
  - Insanity 6y ago
    That's a fair point - and indeed I like those projects, not not just for finding good dependencies. I don't actually use that many external libs - but it's basically a version of "Show HN". The projects can have interesting code to read or just show off a cool idea or a different way of implementing something than I'm used to.
rapsey 6y ago
I find github search to be immensely useful. Filter by file extension and you can pretty much search the open source world for some API in a language.
- narengowda16 6y ago
  Talking about search: Our company uses GitHub enterprise. We have 1000+ repositories, each repo for a serverless function. Github's search is pathetically broken, I had to download all 1000 repositories in my Mac and search for a dependencies via Vscode. Surprisingly Vscode is blazing fast.
  - jyriand 6y ago
    1000 repos seems a bit much. Does it mean that when developing a feature you have to change code in tens of repositories And then create separate commits and PRs for each of those? It just seems way too microscopic.
  - roblabla 6y ago
    I use sourcegraph[0] for most of my searches even on non-entreprise github to work around how broken github search is. Sourcegraph has the ability to search in forks, in a specific commit, or in a set of repos that you define. It's really quite good at doing github-wide searches of arbitrary query. I'm pretty sure its self-hosted solution can be made to work with github entreprise, you might want to check it out :). Disclaimer: Just a happy sourcegraph user. [0]: https://sourcegraph.com https://sourcegraph.com
  - sighol 6y ago
    Text search in vscode is done by ripgrep[1]. [1]: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_11#_text-search-improvements https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_11#_text-search-imp...
pmontra 6y ago
The Trending page is news to me too. I discover GitHub repositories by googling for solutions to my problems or by following links in the sites of package managers (Ruby, Python, Node, Elixir.) I seldom check the other repositories of an account unless I have reasons to believe they do something else I need. What they follow, maybe never.
glouwbug 6y ago
Well, I wrote a couple projects that gained a couple hundred (and thousand) stars. I've made the front page of Hackernews three or four times. I've been featured on HackaDay and I've been spoken about on Linux Gaming Podcast. I have received cryptic Russian emails, and I have had blogs written about my work. The thrill I got from the attention was huge. I felt validated to no end, and my "collection of stars" has sent recruiters haywire. I landed my most recent job with my github portfolio. But that's just it. It's a bit of limelight. I'm thankful for the interest I've received, but that's all it is, really; it's validation from fellow programmers. It furthers your career in one or two aspects, just like Instagram fuels your self image, or prospects of influencing. But like Instagram, one can chase the limelight their whole life. Ego stroking is addictive. I urge those who come into a bit of limelight to enjoy it, but to stay humble and focus on delivering what you set out to do, not to bask in your temporory moment of glory.

Never had any "fun" with github either. I have had my account since 2013 and I've just learned about this "trending page" thing. Can anyone explain what's it useful for?

Insanity 6y ago

YMMV, but for me it does tend to show interesting projects that I otherwise would not have learned about.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
This may also highlight one of the contrasts between my approach, and that of many of today’s engineers. I am almost exclusively a Principal author of my work; with dozens of repos, and six figures of LoC (probably seven figures, if we include the code not available in public repos). I think I may have one forked repo; an embedded Web server library that I needed to tweak a bit to make work for my ffmpeg wrapper project. This is not necessarily a good thing. By authoring my own code, I limit my scope. People who rely heavily on dependencies can have awesome results. But they need to be very careful about the provenance and quality of these dependencies. Dependency discovery is an important part of the vetting process. If we have choices, we don’t need to settle for second-best. Also, I know that, for many folks, learning is a driver for repo discovery. A lot of forks can indicate an inquisitive and open-minded approach to software development. I do support it; but it is not how I work.
- Insanity 6y ago
  That's a fair point - and indeed I like those projects, not not just for finding good dependencies. I don't actually use that many external libs - but it's basically a version of "Show HN". The projects can have interesting code to read or just show off a cool idea or a different way of implementing something than I'm used to.

rapsey 6y ago

I find github search to be immensely useful. Filter by file extension and you can pretty much search the open source world for some API in a language.

narengowda16 6y ago
Talking about search: Our company uses GitHub enterprise. We have 1000+ repositories, each repo for a serverless function. Github's search is pathetically broken, I had to download all 1000 repositories in my Mac and search for a dependencies via Vscode. Surprisingly Vscode is blazing fast.
- jyriand 6y ago
  1000 repos seems a bit much. Does it mean that when developing a feature you have to change code in tens of repositories And then create separate commits and PRs for each of those? It just seems way too microscopic.
- roblabla 6y ago
  I use sourcegraph[0] for most of my searches even on non-entreprise github to work around how broken github search is. Sourcegraph has the ability to search in forks, in a specific commit, or in a set of repos that you define. It's really quite good at doing github-wide searches of arbitrary query. I'm pretty sure its self-hosted solution can be made to work with github entreprise, you might want to check it out :). Disclaimer: Just a happy sourcegraph user. [0]: https://sourcegraph.com https://sourcegraph.com
- sighol 6y ago
  Text search in vscode is done by ripgrep[1]. [1]: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_11#_text-search-improvements https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_11#_text-search-imp...

pmontra 6y ago

The Trending page is news to me too. I discover GitHub repositories by googling for solutions to my problems or by following links in the sites of package managers (Ruby, Python, Node, Elixir.) I seldom check the other repositories of an account unless I have reasons to believe they do something else I need. What they follow, maybe never.

glouwbug 6y ago

Well, I wrote a couple projects that gained a couple hundred (and thousand) stars. I've made the front page of Hackernews three or four times. I've been featured on HackaDay and I've been spoken about on Linux Gaming Podcast. I have received cryptic Russian emails, and I have had blogs written about my work. The thrill I got from the attention was huge. I felt validated to no end, and my "collection of stars" has sent recruiters haywire. I landed my most recent job with my github portfolio. But that's just it. It's a bit of limelight. I'm thankful for the interest I've received, but that's all it is, really; it's validation from fellow programmers. It furthers your career in one or two aspects, just like Instagram fuels your self image, or prospects of influencing. But like Instagram, one can chase the limelight their whole life. Ego stroking is addictive. I urge those who come into a bit of limelight to enjoy it, but to stay humble and focus on delivering what you set out to do, not to bask in your temporory moment of glory.