6 ms·

State of the Octoverse

74 points by keyle 6y ago

zX41ZdbW 6y ago
Also take a look at the more technical overview of the Octoverse: https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/ https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/ It is like interactive notebook when you can edit and run your own queries on the metadata from GitHub.
- breck 6y ago
  This is fantastic! Thanks.
camdenlock 6y ago
This is actually great. They focused on metrics that actually affect us all in the software dev space, and they didn’t pander by focusing on useless traits like a person’s gender and/or skin color. Progress!
jariel 6y ago
The top starred repo (according to query: https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars) by stars is: https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars Which is a 'protest' against 996 work schedule. That's notable because I wouldn't have thought of GitHub as being a conduit for Chinese labour concerns before 2020. Secondarily: TS has shot up the ranks, arguably a flavour of JS (already #1), together making them overwhelmingly the top dog. Python now #2. It would be interesting to see the types of information repo'd there by language, if anyone has resources on that please feel free to share. We roughly know what people are doing in JS and C++ ... but in Python? What exactly is happening? We can only speculate. Is it Django? Devop scripts? Data? Education? AI?
- yorwba 6y ago
  996.icu was actually started in March 2019. (Earliest HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179 )
- simonw 6y ago
  Python has seen enormous growth in data analysis and machine learning, thanks in part to the success of Jupyter notebooks.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rhacker 6y ago
Yep, Typescript shot up. Expected that.
qchris 6y ago
Personally, I'd love to see these reports include annual data on the number/percentage of repositories with an open source license, and a breakdown of which licenses are most common. There was a post to that effect on the Github blog in 2015 [1], but it looks like it was a one-time deal. I think it would fit well into the Community Report data, and provide a pretty useful view into the actual state of free and open-source licensing. [1] https://github.blog/2015-03-09-open-source-license-usage-on-github-com/ https://github.blog/2015-03-09-open-source-license-usage-on-...
- breck 6y ago
  You can search repos by license and see the counts. Two of my faves: 6M MIT: https://github.com/search?q=license%3Amit&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l= https://github.com/search?q=license%3Amit&type=Repositories&... 164K Unlicense: https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aunlicense&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l= https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aunlicense&type=Reposit... They also have search by license "family".
simonw 6y ago
These should not be PDF files. It's 2021 - people read stuff on their phones. PDFs are rubbish on phones. If you're going to distribute reports like this as PDFs you should have a well designed, responsive HTML version of the content as well. I'm surprised by this because I usually see GitHub as a superb example of a web native company. This isn't web native at all.
- breck 6y ago
  The HTML page is very well designed and full of content. It seems like the primary content is in the HTML. The content in the PDFs I think was secondary.
  - simonw 6y ago
    The PDFs have 110 pages total, so there's a ton of extra information in there. They're pretty, but there's no reason at all for them not to be HTML - if they were HTML (with linkable headings) I'd be able to link people to interesting insights from them, for example.
    - breck 6y ago
      I would like a better format, but I like to print things, which PDF is still better than HTML at, AFAIK.
      - simonw 6y ago
        Right - that's the reason to offer both.
bergie 6y ago
Couple of interesting snippets: Apple languages don’t reach the top-10 of languages used on GitHub. While this is likely impacted by the Objective-C/Swift split, it still shows how niche development for that platform is. The rise of China in Open Source contributions, along with GitHub’s estimate that they’ll be the biggest contributing country by 2030.
- CorpOverreach 6y ago
  I wouldn't necessarily call their platform a niche - but rather one that doesn't foster a lot of open-source contributions. I've always felt like development on Apple's platforms, even when wildly successful, is often a close-sourced and proprietary endeavor. It doesn't surprise me much that there isn't a big footprint of their languages on GitHub.
  - Macha 6y ago
    Yeah, I think there's more of a culture of paid (and therefore mostly closed source apps) on Apple platforms. Whereas anything cross platform is _not_ using Apple languages for the bulk of their code base, and Linux focused/exclusive apps are going to be over represented among open source because people who value open source are more likely to use an open source OS
- EvilEy3 6y ago
  > Apple languages don’t reach the top-10 of languages used on GitHub. While this is likely impacted by the Objective-C/Swift split, it still shows how niche development for that platform is. Michelin 3-star restaurants don't reach the top used in world either.
  - wing-_-nuts 6y ago
    I think a more apt analogy would be the 'soup nazi' and your soup can only be eaten in special, overpriced 'soup nazi' bowls.
  - alxlaz 6y ago
    > Michelin 3-star restaurants don't reach the top used in world either. On the other hand, Michelin 3-star restaurants will typically give you cutlery along with your dinner, instead of telling you that you've got a drawer full of cutlery at home anyway. I'm not at all convinced this is the right analogy ;-). The more likely reason is the one Macha mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25632710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25632710 . Apple's environment has a tradition of paid, closed-source development, and any cross-platform tools that also support macOS or iOS are unlikely to be built with Apple's macOS/iOS-only tools.

74 points by keyle 6y ago

Also take a look at the more technical overview of the Octoverse: https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/ https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/ It is like interactive notebook when you can edit and run your own queries on the metadata from GitHub.

breck 6y ago
This is fantastic! Thanks.

camdenlock 6y ago

This is actually great. They focused on metrics that actually affect us all in the software dev space, and they didn’t pander by focusing on useless traits like a person’s gender and/or skin color. Progress!

jariel 6y ago

The top starred repo (according to query: https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars) by stars is: https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars https://gh.clickhouse.tech/explorer/#counting-stars Which is a 'protest' against 996 work schedule. That's notable because I wouldn't have thought of GitHub as being a conduit for Chinese labour concerns before 2020. Secondarily: TS has shot up the ranks, arguably a flavour of JS (already #1), together making them overwhelmingly the top dog. Python now #2. It would be interesting to see the types of information repo'd there by language, if anyone has resources on that please feel free to share. We roughly know what people are doing in JS and C++ ... but in Python? What exactly is happening? We can only speculate. Is it Django? Devop scripts? Data? Education? AI?

yorwba 6y ago
996.icu was actually started in March 2019. (Earliest HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19498179 )
simonw 6y ago
Python has seen enormous growth in data analysis and machine learning, thanks in part to the success of Jupyter notebooks.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rhacker 6y ago

Yep, Typescript shot up. Expected that.

qchris 6y ago

Personally, I'd love to see these reports include annual data on the number/percentage of repositories with an open source license, and a breakdown of which licenses are most common. There was a post to that effect on the Github blog in 2015 [1], but it looks like it was a one-time deal. I think it would fit well into the Community Report data, and provide a pretty useful view into the actual state of free and open-source licensing. [1] https://github.blog/2015-03-09-open-source-license-usage-on-github-com/ https://github.blog/2015-03-09-open-source-license-usage-on-...

breck 6y ago
You can search repos by license and see the counts. Two of my faves: 6M MIT: https://github.com/search?q=license%3Amit&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l= https://github.com/search?q=license%3Amit&type=Repositories&... 164K Unlicense: https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aunlicense&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l= https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aunlicense&type=Reposit... They also have search by license "family".

simonw 6y ago

These should not be PDF files. It's 2021 - people read stuff on their phones. PDFs are rubbish on phones. If you're going to distribute reports like this as PDFs you should have a well designed, responsive HTML version of the content as well. I'm surprised by this because I usually see GitHub as a superb example of a web native company. This isn't web native at all.

breck 6y ago
The HTML page is very well designed and full of content. It seems like the primary content is in the HTML. The content in the PDFs I think was secondary.
- simonw 6y ago
  The PDFs have 110 pages total, so there's a ton of extra information in there. They're pretty, but there's no reason at all for them not to be HTML - if they were HTML (with linkable headings) I'd be able to link people to interesting insights from them, for example.
  - breck 6y ago
    I would like a better format, but I like to print things, which PDF is still better than HTML at, AFAIK.
    - simonw 6y ago
      Right - that's the reason to offer both.

bergie 6y ago

Couple of interesting snippets: Apple languages don’t reach the top-10 of languages used on GitHub. While this is likely impacted by the Objective-C/Swift split, it still shows how niche development for that platform is. The rise of China in Open Source contributions, along with GitHub’s estimate that they’ll be the biggest contributing country by 2030.

CorpOverreach 6y ago
I wouldn't necessarily call their platform a niche - but rather one that doesn't foster a lot of open-source contributions. I've always felt like development on Apple's platforms, even when wildly successful, is often a close-sourced and proprietary endeavor. It doesn't surprise me much that there isn't a big footprint of their languages on GitHub.
- Macha 6y ago
  Yeah, I think there's more of a culture of paid (and therefore mostly closed source apps) on Apple platforms. Whereas anything cross platform is _not_ using Apple languages for the bulk of their code base, and Linux focused/exclusive apps are going to be over represented among open source because people who value open source are more likely to use an open source OS
EvilEy3 6y ago
> Apple languages don’t reach the top-10 of languages used on GitHub. While this is likely impacted by the Objective-C/Swift split, it still shows how niche development for that platform is. Michelin 3-star restaurants don't reach the top used in world either.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  I think a more apt analogy would be the 'soup nazi' and your soup can only be eaten in special, overpriced 'soup nazi' bowls.
- alxlaz 6y ago
  > Michelin 3-star restaurants don't reach the top used in world either. On the other hand, Michelin 3-star restaurants will typically give you cutlery along with your dinner, instead of telling you that you've got a drawer full of cutlery at home anyway. I'm not at all convinced this is the right analogy ;-). The more likely reason is the one Macha mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25632710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25632710 . Apple's environment has a tradition of paid, closed-source development, and any cross-platform tools that also support macOS or iOS are unlikely to be built with Apple's macOS/iOS-only tools.