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A compony moves their code repository to a different provider. Honest question: why is this news worthy? Am I missing something?

melling 6y ago
It helps to follow trends. For a while I thought Gitlab was part of GitHub. When I see enough news about something on HN, I look into it. I even did a little Rust tutorial recently. Buzz makes a difference
vorpalhex 6y ago
Wikimedia is very cautious in making changes because they take very seriously the values of sustainability and predictability. That they are moving from Gerrit to Gitlab is a blow against Gerrit and a boon for Gitlab (assuming it goes well).
- A_No_Name_Mouse 6y ago
  Thanks. I'm not a developer so I guess it's relevant, just not for me.
- zeitg3ist 6y ago
  I don’t know about Wikimedia being super cautious when adopting technologies... I host a MediaWiki instance and there’s been a lot of “not so cautious” tech decisions in the past. Jumping early on the HHVM train (which they eventually had to leave); adopting Lua for wiki modules; developing Parsoid as a Node service (now rewritten in PHP)... None of these was the “safe option”; in some cases it worked out well but in others it didn’t.
  - sayhar 6y ago
    What's wrong with HHVM? Honestly asking, I have no real context beyond knowing it is a FB invention
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      HHVM got very little community adoption and never had strong promises to stay compatible with the rest of the PHP ecosystem.
  - TonyTrapp 6y ago
    None of that was forced on anyone, though. Everything you mention are purely optional components. I think it makes sense for them to explore new technologies like that while still keeping their general requirements conservative.
    - zeitg3ist 6y ago
      Yeah, but those components were heavily used on Wikipedia and other Wikipedia websites, and some - especially Lua modules - are fundamental once the wiki grows to a certain size, since wikicode templates are quite limited and suffer from performance problems.

melling 6y ago

It helps to follow trends. For a while I thought Gitlab was part of GitHub. When I see enough news about something on HN, I look into it. I even did a little Rust tutorial recently. Buzz makes a difference

vorpalhex 6y ago

Wikimedia is very cautious in making changes because they take very seriously the values of sustainability and predictability. That they are moving from Gerrit to Gitlab is a blow against Gerrit and a boon for Gitlab (assuming it goes well).

A_No_Name_Mouse 6y ago
Thanks. I'm not a developer so I guess it's relevant, just not for me.
zeitg3ist 6y ago
I don’t know about Wikimedia being super cautious when adopting technologies... I host a MediaWiki instance and there’s been a lot of “not so cautious” tech decisions in the past. Jumping early on the HHVM train (which they eventually had to leave); adopting Lua for wiki modules; developing Parsoid as a Node service (now rewritten in PHP)... None of these was the “safe option”; in some cases it worked out well but in others it didn’t.
- sayhar 6y ago
  What's wrong with HHVM? Honestly asking, I have no real context beyond knowing it is a FB invention
  - SahAssar 6y ago
    HHVM got very little community adoption and never had strong promises to stay compatible with the rest of the PHP ecosystem.
- TonyTrapp 6y ago
  None of that was forced on anyone, though. Everything you mention are purely optional components. I think it makes sense for them to explore new technologies like that while still keeping their general requirements conservative.
  - zeitg3ist 6y ago
    Yeah, but those components were heavily used on Wikipedia and other Wikipedia websites, and some - especially Lua modules - are fundamental once the wiki grows to a certain size, since wikicode templates are quite limited and suffer from performance problems.