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It is some measure of popularity/maintenance. In choosing something to use, I would first check the activity (as a proxy to rate of bugfixes, for one), and seco
by kvn_95 6y ago
It is some measure of popularity/maintenance. In choosing something to use, I would first check the activity (as a proxy to rate of bugfixes, for one), and second I will check the number of stars (as a proxy to how many people are watching/using this).
If there are more stars, I would assume that if the owner of the repo dropped off the face of the earth, it's more likely that a new maintainer would step up.
From my personal observation, those two go together and I usually don't take them in isolation. One may be able to game the stars, but they won't be able to game activity (issues, commits, etc.), I'm hoping at least not in a meaningful manner.
- jimsmart 6y agoExactly this. Furthermore, I would add the following considerations (in no particular order): documentation existence/quality, possible use of CI, reasonable coverage (if shown/known), use/inclusion in other projects, outward quality/appearance of code (can I read it, could I fix it, could I maintain it), licensing (clear/compatible) — outside of the repo: are there articles about it on the web, are there videos about it on Youtube. It varies depending on what the repo is, and what I might intend to use it for, as to how in-depth I will actually go with each of these. But it's always worth a quick scan. There is much that can be inferred from examining such things. Stars are just a single indicator among many.