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Maybe I'm deviating from the general consensus here, but to me the social-network-isms in GitHub are an anti-pattern in business and undesired in such a highly

Maybe I'm deviating from the general consensus here, but to me the social-network-isms in GitHub are an anti-pattern in business and undesired in such a highly useful utility service.

aliqot 4y ago
But the kids, they like it.
jchw 4y ago
The discovery features resemble "social network-isms" but have a lot of utility. Also, GitHub is obviously not only about business, and the symbiosis of what it offers for businesses as well as open source users is important to its identity in my opinion. That all having been said, I do not disagree that in most cases, the "social coding" thing is a misnomer. GitHub's main contribution, in my opinion, was actually just putting source control and source code at the forefront of the project forge concept. Sourceforge felt like a nice website for projects to organize, but code storage felt at best like an afterthought. GitHub's forks and pull requests are what really make it shine, and the rest is mostly either bonus or noise.
bpodgursky 4y ago
Eh, public stars and forks on OSS repos is a really valuable indicator of whether to seriously consider using a library IMO. Not like, 3k vs 8k, but like 200 vs 0... help me understand if this is this a hobby project someone wrote and abandoned in a few days.
- ComputerGuru 4y ago
  I have projects lovingly maintained for a decade (and responding to genuine issues with bug fixes within days) that have under five stars. Not a good metric.
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    I still strongly suspect that you have more stars than any "competitive" OSS projects in the niche (if any even exist), which is all I'm using the stars as a heuristic for (initial sort).
    - ComputerGuru 4y ago
      > if any even exist Fair point.
netr0ute 4y ago
> the social-network-isms in GitHub are an anti-pattern I don't know, as the "social coding" platform never claimed to be anything different.
sieabah 4y ago
Don't worry you'll be vilified for disliking features by the tech community because they can't not have social features everywhere.
notatoad 4y ago
Do you have an actual complaint here, or just buzzwords? Calling something an “anti-pattern” or “undesired” doesn’t mean anything. Your comment contains no substance that couldn’t have been conveyed by saying “I hate it”. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. That’s what I do. Is there an actual reason that the mere existence of social networking features is harmful to those of us who choose not to bother with them?
- ianbutler 4y ago
  They may become mandatory signals used for finding jobs? Thin line of thought maybe, but I honestly don’t mind the features I’m just trying to give a talking point to rally around.
  - githubuser123 4y ago
    It's infuriating that people don't make themselves easily reachable on GitHub. So many people with so much talent, wasting it on some really meaningless stuff.
    - intelVISA 4y ago
      What's "meaningless stuff" to you in this context?
- cxr 4y ago
  Widespread practices infect norms. For example, thanks to the norms fostered on GitHub, you can no longer expect the average programmer to file good bug reports or to just interact in an appropriate way with the bugtracker. We can't really talk about "wikis", either, without confusion about what a wiki even is—again, thanks to GitHub.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    > For example, thanks to the norms fostered on GitHub, you can no longer expect the average programmer to file good bug reports or to just interact in an appropriate way with the bugtracker. Was it done properly? I suspect that average programmer just didn't report anything, instead of create new GitHub issue. It's annoying to sign up each ML or bugzilla.
Rebelgecko 4y ago
What differentiates Github from any other git provider, except for the social network-isms?
bmitc 4y ago
Aren't private profiles in the opposite direction of social network-isms?

Maybe I'm deviating from the general consensus here, but to me the social-network-isms in GitHub are an anti-pattern in business and undesired in such a highly useful utility service.

aliqot 4y ago

But the kids, they like it.

jchw 4y ago

The discovery features resemble "social network-isms" but have a lot of utility. Also, GitHub is obviously not only about business, and the symbiosis of what it offers for businesses as well as open source users is important to its identity in my opinion. That all having been said, I do not disagree that in most cases, the "social coding" thing is a misnomer. GitHub's main contribution, in my opinion, was actually just putting source control and source code at the forefront of the project forge concept. Sourceforge felt like a nice website for projects to organize, but code storage felt at best like an afterthought. GitHub's forks and pull requests are what really make it shine, and the rest is mostly either bonus or noise.

bpodgursky 4y ago

Eh, public stars and forks on OSS repos is a really valuable indicator of whether to seriously consider using a library IMO. Not like, 3k vs 8k, but like 200 vs 0... help me understand if this is this a hobby project someone wrote and abandoned in a few days.

ComputerGuru 4y ago
I have projects lovingly maintained for a decade (and responding to genuine issues with bug fixes within days) that have under five stars. Not a good metric.
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  I still strongly suspect that you have more stars than any "competitive" OSS projects in the niche (if any even exist), which is all I'm using the stars as a heuristic for (initial sort).
  - ComputerGuru 4y ago
    > if any even exist Fair point.

netr0ute 4y ago

> the social-network-isms in GitHub are an anti-pattern I don't know, as the "social coding" platform never claimed to be anything different.

sieabah 4y ago

Don't worry you'll be vilified for disliking features by the tech community because they can't not have social features everywhere.

notatoad 4y ago

Do you have an actual complaint here, or just buzzwords? Calling something an “anti-pattern” or “undesired” doesn’t mean anything. Your comment contains no substance that couldn’t have been conveyed by saying “I hate it”. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. That’s what I do. Is there an actual reason that the mere existence of social networking features is harmful to those of us who choose not to bother with them?

ianbutler 4y ago
They may become mandatory signals used for finding jobs? Thin line of thought maybe, but I honestly don’t mind the features I’m just trying to give a talking point to rally around.
- githubuser123 4y ago
  It's infuriating that people don't make themselves easily reachable on GitHub. So many people with so much talent, wasting it on some really meaningless stuff.
  - intelVISA 4y ago
    What's "meaningless stuff" to you in this context?
cxr 4y ago
Widespread practices infect norms. For example, thanks to the norms fostered on GitHub, you can no longer expect the average programmer to file good bug reports or to just interact in an appropriate way with the bugtracker. We can't really talk about "wikis", either, without confusion about what a wiki even is—again, thanks to GitHub.
- fomine3 4y ago
  > For example, thanks to the norms fostered on GitHub, you can no longer expect the average programmer to file good bug reports or to just interact in an appropriate way with the bugtracker. Was it done properly? I suspect that average programmer just didn't report anything, instead of create new GitHub issue. It's annoying to sign up each ML or bugzilla.

Rebelgecko 4y ago

What differentiates Github from any other git provider, except for the social network-isms?

bmitc 4y ago

Aren't private profiles in the opposite direction of social network-isms?