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A paid user + big fan of gitlab. They exist in a strange valley between github and Atlassian where usability has remained high while also being featureful. The

A paid user + big fan of gitlab. They exist in a strange valley between github and Atlassian where usability has remained high while also being featureful. Their kanban is 10% more functional than Trello, which is all our small team really needs, they give you everything and they don't nickel and dime you. The only feature I would like to see improved is their PR process. Seems a bit buggy with remotely large changesets, and the digest for the PR should provide a bit more context to reviewees.

disgruntledphd2 5y ago
The only issue I had with GL is that they don't show the entire diff if the changes/files are very large. They may have fixed this since last year, but it was super, super annoying to me at the time.
- 1270018080 5y ago
  Their search functionality is also... non functioning. Github's search is dramatically more powerful.
- debacle 5y ago
  You can "expand" the diff, but sometimes that breaks the UI, makes it unable to add comments, etc. That's probably the reason they don't show large changesets by default.
- necovek 5y ago
  Nope, they still arbitrarily decide to "fold" big changes (file with a large diff), causing me to miss entire files when reviewing on occasion. In all honesty, their pull request pages need a lot of UX work: too much stuff going on on the overview pages, jumping to unresolved threads does not work when they are in previous commits... There's also that merge train confusion where merge trains get "cancelled" without an obvious explanation ("this was cancelled because it is included in a new one" would do). In a sense, I'd say that their UX is pretty bad, but the API is not much better either (you can't fetch pipeline log files with individual script timings that you see floating on the right in the web UI). If anything, all of this only goes to show that you don't need to be perfect to be good! But I applaud the effort, mission and dedication they put up, and especially their open core nature. Congrats on the IPO and keep pushing forward.
dhritzkiv 5y ago
Yes! Gitlab's offerings are great, and our team doesn't even scratch the surface of what's possible with its feature set. That said, MRs with over 1000 lines of changes are painful sometimes impossible to review. Even small MRs feel clunky, due to how many panels there are (yes, I know they're collapsible). Because MRs are one of our most used features, it sometimes makes me consider switching to GitHub for their much nicer PR UX/UI.
- Gepsens 5y ago
  I prefer to use Intellij now for reviews. How can people review any kind of code in that PR web UI ? I mean I used to do it but not anymore
  - marceloabsousa 5y ago
    Would be very curious about your thoughts on Reviewpad (https://reviewpad.com https://reviewpad.com). The interactions you have on the IDE are very different than a tool that was specifically made for code reviews.
    - NmAmDa 5y ago
      I really enjoy the idea. Seems like a good tool to use. do you plan to release an arm64 docker version soon?
  - nyanpasu64 5y ago
    Do you review code in the code editor, the git diff, or some specialized full-PR/MR diff with integration with online comments and discussions? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40217494/how-to-review-a-pull-request-in-intellij-idea https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40217494/how-to-review-a... says IntelliJ has GitHub-only specialized PR review/commenting.
  - dhritzkiv 5y ago
    Yeah, I should really quit struggling with Gitlab's. For really large MRs, I use Tower + Kaleidoscope to view the changes. But then I can't easily leave a comment on a line of code (a big part of the review process)
marceloabsousa 5y ago
We've been building a new code review tool for the PR/MR process. Check it out at https://reviewpad.com https://reviewpad.com.
- xjia 5y ago
  We have also built a similar thing based on git-format-patch and the patch workflow: https://www.reviewpatch.org https://www.reviewpatch.org
- gregmfoster 5y ago
  What is your thinking around post merge reviews?
gregmfoster 5y ago
Neither GitHub nor GitLab quite hit the mark for me with regards to code review. Phabricator (RIP) was close IMO, with first class support for (1) seeing comments and code on one view and (2) supporting stacks which prevent mega changes. I've been working with some peers on a better code review tool since hearing about Phabricator shutting down: https://graphite.dev/ https://graphite.dev/ It syncs all data to GitHub while offering things like a review queue, gif reactions, stacked diffs, etc - all inspired from Phabricator.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Gif reactions in code review is something we want?

disgruntledphd2 5y ago

The only issue I had with GL is that they don't show the entire diff if the changes/files are very large. They may have fixed this since last year, but it was super, super annoying to me at the time.

1270018080 5y ago
Their search functionality is also... non functioning. Github's search is dramatically more powerful.
debacle 5y ago
You can "expand" the diff, but sometimes that breaks the UI, makes it unable to add comments, etc. That's probably the reason they don't show large changesets by default.
necovek 5y ago
Nope, they still arbitrarily decide to "fold" big changes (file with a large diff), causing me to miss entire files when reviewing on occasion. In all honesty, their pull request pages need a lot of UX work: too much stuff going on on the overview pages, jumping to unresolved threads does not work when they are in previous commits... There's also that merge train confusion where merge trains get "cancelled" without an obvious explanation ("this was cancelled because it is included in a new one" would do). In a sense, I'd say that their UX is pretty bad, but the API is not much better either (you can't fetch pipeline log files with individual script timings that you see floating on the right in the web UI). If anything, all of this only goes to show that you don't need to be perfect to be good! But I applaud the effort, mission and dedication they put up, and especially their open core nature. Congrats on the IPO and keep pushing forward.

dhritzkiv 5y ago

Yes! Gitlab's offerings are great, and our team doesn't even scratch the surface of what's possible with its feature set. That said, MRs with over 1000 lines of changes are painful sometimes impossible to review. Even small MRs feel clunky, due to how many panels there are (yes, I know they're collapsible). Because MRs are one of our most used features, it sometimes makes me consider switching to GitHub for their much nicer PR UX/UI.

Gepsens 5y ago
I prefer to use Intellij now for reviews. How can people review any kind of code in that PR web UI ? I mean I used to do it but not anymore
- marceloabsousa 5y ago
  Would be very curious about your thoughts on Reviewpad (https://reviewpad.com https://reviewpad.com). The interactions you have on the IDE are very different than a tool that was specifically made for code reviews.
  - NmAmDa 5y ago
    I really enjoy the idea. Seems like a good tool to use. do you plan to release an arm64 docker version soon?
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  Do you review code in the code editor, the git diff, or some specialized full-PR/MR diff with integration with online comments and discussions? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40217494/how-to-review-a-pull-request-in-intellij-idea https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40217494/how-to-review-a... says IntelliJ has GitHub-only specialized PR review/commenting.
- dhritzkiv 5y ago
  Yeah, I should really quit struggling with Gitlab's. For really large MRs, I use Tower + Kaleidoscope to view the changes. But then I can't easily leave a comment on a line of code (a big part of the review process)

marceloabsousa 5y ago

We've been building a new code review tool for the PR/MR process. Check it out at https://reviewpad.com https://reviewpad.com.

xjia 5y ago
We have also built a similar thing based on git-format-patch and the patch workflow: https://www.reviewpatch.org https://www.reviewpatch.org
gregmfoster 5y ago
What is your thinking around post merge reviews?

gregmfoster 5y ago

Neither GitHub nor GitLab quite hit the mark for me with regards to code review. Phabricator (RIP) was close IMO, with first class support for (1) seeing comments and code on one view and (2) supporting stacks which prevent mega changes. I've been working with some peers on a better code review tool since hearing about Phabricator shutting down: https://graphite.dev/ https://graphite.dev/ It syncs all data to GitHub while offering things like a review queue, gif reactions, stacked diffs, etc - all inspired from Phabricator.

Aeolun 5y ago
Gif reactions in code review is something we want?