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I don’t think I’ve ever looked at anybody’s profile on github, and I can’t imagine that anybody has ever looked at mine (including me). It would just be a list

I don’t think I’ve ever looked at anybody’s profile on github, and I can’t imagine that anybody has ever looked at mine (including me). It would just be a list of commits to source control, right? Can anybody who uses this feature explain what github profiles are for? I don’t know that I’d go so far as to explicitly hide that information, mostly because it is so mundane as to have no value to anybody.

donatj 5y ago
I look at profiles all the time to see what else people have made and in generally trying to judge the quality of their work. Basically whenever I find a package I really like, or I'm skeptical about the profiles the first place I go. What use is private profiles? Basically nil, but they want to turn GitHub into OnlyFans
- EnKopVand 5y ago
  I would personally be vary of judging people on what they put on their GitHub accounts, because a lot of the real work people do is often locked away in private repositories (or on other platforms). I can use myself as an anecdotal example. I use GitHub mainly to store guides and neat tricks for myself, and to sometimes share some excellent code. All my current professional work lives in Azure DevOps, locked away so that you would never know so if I didn’t tell you. I have a NPM package that should be private but is public because we share it with some contractors and nonsense occurred (loooong story that is basically answered by “above my pay grade”). If you found it and looked at my GitHub profile, then you might use it, and you’d experience some breaking changes that you typically wouldn’t with good OSS NPM packages every time we make some major updates to it. Because we don’t really factor external user into our processes.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    For me, it's just a data point. Usually, people have their stuff spread around, and the GH profile can be a "gateway" to the rest of their information. In my case, I have a ton of open-source stuff, so my GH profile is a good starting point.
tandav 5y ago
I use it to check what people I follow (friends, cool persons etc) doing every day. But checking each profile to see recent updates is difficult. I created kinda GitHub updates feed using their API. https://github-feed.tandav.me https://github-feed.tandav.me I wish the official GitHub newsfeed to show contribution updates instead of likes. Or even customize what to see in feed.
nyellin 5y ago
I use it all the time when hiring! We're open source (https://robusta.dev https://robusta.dev) and very involved in the kubernetes ecosystem so GitHub history is extremely relevant when we look at candidates. We'll hire people with no GitHub activity too, but when it's available it's great
- onionisafruit 5y ago
  This goes the other way too. I’m job hunting now and have been looking at companies’ open source projects and activity of their leadership for red flags. I wish I had done that with the company I just left. If I had looked at any of the PRs the founder reviewed I would have realized he is not somebody I want to work with.
josephg 5y ago
When I get pull requests or issues opened on my projects I often click on the person making the request. You can usually tell a lot about someone from their GitHub history - is it a new account? Do they have student projects there? What flavour of projects are pinned? Research? Database stuff? Niche hobby projects? If someone has an old GitHub account but very little activity, I assume they work at a leech company which uses opensource but doesn’t contribute back. I’m less likely to care about the needs of users like that. That said, professional software engineers will usually be more responsive in issue threads when they run into bugs. I’m much more likely to fix a bug if you can give me a good repro!
- mxuribe 5y ago
  > ...I’m less likely to care about the needs of users like that... I kindly suggest you not lump in users/employees with the behaviors of their employers. Any company that i might work for might indeed be "leeches" as you noted, but that does not mean the user/associate/employee is one also. It might also be the case that said employee actually only works for such an employer as a necessity...you know for earning a living, but not really share the morals/ethics of the employer. Some employers require proprietary controls on their source code, hence preventing employees from using publicly availablr repos on github. Now, if i were to get "graded" on my low activity on github for personal projects, then i get your point...but to automatically lump in both employee and employer into one actor's ethics, seems not right.
  - josephg 5y ago
    If you use opensource code but don’t contribute back, you not an equal member of the opensource community. You’re getting financial benefit from my donated effort. I don’t mind - I wouldn’t opensource my work if this bothered me enough. But GitHub issues opened by leeches have a certain entitled tang to them - “Hey could you donate more of your time so I can make more profit? I won’t pay you. Maybe you should be thanking me for finding problems in your work and pointing them out to you. Get to it!” The reason you don’t contribute doesn’t matter. You’re profiting from my volunteer work and asking me to volunteer more so you can profit more. Justify leeching to yourself how you like. But you won’t get respect from me until you contribute back. And, yes, if you work at an immoral company, that is also absolutely on your hands.
chrisseaton 5y ago
If you like or use a project by someone, take a look at their profile to see what else they do. Mine also has links to more info about me.
stagas 5y ago
I always look at a profile when I see projects or code that I like and most of the time I was happy for doing so because I discover lots more projects that I like and that's inspiring and adds plenty of value to my own work. And many of the times I get to use those projects. I can't imagine what coding would look like without following all those people and getting these updates on the work they do. The value I get from visiting other people's profiles and studying their work is immense.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
GH profiles are geek business cards, these days. I always look at profiles. I spent a bunch of time, customizing mine: https://github.com/chrismarshallny https://github.com/chrismarshallny

donatj 5y ago

I look at profiles all the time to see what else people have made and in generally trying to judge the quality of their work. Basically whenever I find a package I really like, or I'm skeptical about the profiles the first place I go. What use is private profiles? Basically nil, but they want to turn GitHub into OnlyFans

EnKopVand 5y ago
I would personally be vary of judging people on what they put on their GitHub accounts, because a lot of the real work people do is often locked away in private repositories (or on other platforms). I can use myself as an anecdotal example. I use GitHub mainly to store guides and neat tricks for myself, and to sometimes share some excellent code. All my current professional work lives in Azure DevOps, locked away so that you would never know so if I didn’t tell you. I have a NPM package that should be private but is public because we share it with some contractors and nonsense occurred (loooong story that is basically answered by “above my pay grade”). If you found it and looked at my GitHub profile, then you might use it, and you’d experience some breaking changes that you typically wouldn’t with good OSS NPM packages every time we make some major updates to it. Because we don’t really factor external user into our processes.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  For me, it's just a data point. Usually, people have their stuff spread around, and the GH profile can be a "gateway" to the rest of their information. In my case, I have a ton of open-source stuff, so my GH profile is a good starting point.

tandav 5y ago

I use it to check what people I follow (friends, cool persons etc) doing every day. But checking each profile to see recent updates is difficult. I created kinda GitHub updates feed using their API. https://github-feed.tandav.me https://github-feed.tandav.me I wish the official GitHub newsfeed to show contribution updates instead of likes. Or even customize what to see in feed.

nyellin 5y ago

I use it all the time when hiring! We're open source (https://robusta.dev https://robusta.dev) and very involved in the kubernetes ecosystem so GitHub history is extremely relevant when we look at candidates. We'll hire people with no GitHub activity too, but when it's available it's great

onionisafruit 5y ago
This goes the other way too. I’m job hunting now and have been looking at companies’ open source projects and activity of their leadership for red flags. I wish I had done that with the company I just left. If I had looked at any of the PRs the founder reviewed I would have realized he is not somebody I want to work with.

josephg 5y ago

When I get pull requests or issues opened on my projects I often click on the person making the request. You can usually tell a lot about someone from their GitHub history - is it a new account? Do they have student projects there? What flavour of projects are pinned? Research? Database stuff? Niche hobby projects? If someone has an old GitHub account but very little activity, I assume they work at a leech company which uses opensource but doesn’t contribute back. I’m less likely to care about the needs of users like that. That said, professional software engineers will usually be more responsive in issue threads when they run into bugs. I’m much more likely to fix a bug if you can give me a good repro!

mxuribe 5y ago
> ...I’m less likely to care about the needs of users like that... I kindly suggest you not lump in users/employees with the behaviors of their employers. Any company that i might work for might indeed be "leeches" as you noted, but that does not mean the user/associate/employee is one also. It might also be the case that said employee actually only works for such an employer as a necessity...you know for earning a living, but not really share the morals/ethics of the employer. Some employers require proprietary controls on their source code, hence preventing employees from using publicly availablr repos on github. Now, if i were to get "graded" on my low activity on github for personal projects, then i get your point...but to automatically lump in both employee and employer into one actor's ethics, seems not right.
- josephg 5y ago
  If you use opensource code but don’t contribute back, you not an equal member of the opensource community. You’re getting financial benefit from my donated effort. I don’t mind - I wouldn’t opensource my work if this bothered me enough. But GitHub issues opened by leeches have a certain entitled tang to them - “Hey could you donate more of your time so I can make more profit? I won’t pay you. Maybe you should be thanking me for finding problems in your work and pointing them out to you. Get to it!” The reason you don’t contribute doesn’t matter. You’re profiting from my volunteer work and asking me to volunteer more so you can profit more. Justify leeching to yourself how you like. But you won’t get respect from me until you contribute back. And, yes, if you work at an immoral company, that is also absolutely on your hands.

chrisseaton 5y ago

If you like or use a project by someone, take a look at their profile to see what else they do. Mine also has links to more info about me.

stagas 5y ago

I always look at a profile when I see projects or code that I like and most of the time I was happy for doing so because I discover lots more projects that I like and that's inspiring and adds plenty of value to my own work. And many of the times I get to use those projects. I can't imagine what coding would look like without following all those people and getting these updates on the work they do. The value I get from visiting other people's profiles and studying their work is immense.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

GH profiles are geek business cards, these days. I always look at profiles. I spent a bunch of time, customizing mine: https://github.com/chrismarshallny https://github.com/chrismarshallny