5 ms·

Organizations that insists on using a web interface and ever-changing click workflows not only drive away a significant number of very knowledgeable contributor

by ploum 3y ago

Organizations that insists on using a web interface and ever-changing click workflows not only drive away a significant number of very knowledgeable contributors, but they also form a weirdly irrational culture that fetishizes needlessly graphical content, marketing and fake-usability detrimental to learnability and integration with each user workflow.

sneak 3y ago
“needlessly graphical” requires a citation when it’s clear that if you use a web GUI for this you address a market of potential contributors that is three to six orders of magnitude larger. srht is really designed for (and thus only really useful for) lone wolf developers who collaborate rarely, if ever, and with a very small number of collaborators who collaborate infrequently. It is not built for large teams with constant active collaboration, it falls down for this use case. It’s hobby software for hobby users. (I don’t think this is a bad thing, but you should be aware of the product design goals of its author.)
- ploum 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - sneak 3y ago
    That’s your bias showing; GitHub is primarily designed for getting work done, as it is a paid service that needs to serve its customers.
    - earthboundkid 3y ago
      I think GitHub was designed for getting work done, but since Microsoft bought them, they are slowly moving into enshitification territory. For example, they have a homepage that is just a wanna be social media feed and the file contents pages have ads for Copilot and in general there are ads for VSCode and blah blah. It was pretty good, but it's going to get much worse. :-)
      - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
        I disagree on enshittification. The only practical change I've noticed in github usage is the improvements to code search, which has been unbelievably useful. It gives me the ability to do complex searches to find real usages of even the most obscure libraries, examples of poorly documented configuration files, and more, from any public repository hosted anywhere on github. That capability comes from both the large body of source code available to the platform, and the large amount of engineering work put into that particular feature. It is one of many usability benefits is not available anywhere else.
        earthboundkid 3y ago
        The new code search stuff is very good, yes. "Enshitification" is rapidly becoming a meaningless term of disapproval, but it had a precise definition when Doctorow coined it: > This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. GitHub directed a huge surplus to developers compared to what came before it. Microsoft bought it and worked on furthering the lock in with Actions, and now the ship is slowly moving towards wringing the extra value out of us. It's not at the bottom of the hill yet, but it's definitely on the slope. They already have ads for themselves on it. The ads are just going to slowly creep outwards as necessary to produce a smooth revenue curve.
        follower 3y ago
        > improvements to code search The enshittification related to this feature includes: (1) Code search is no longer available without being logged in to GitHub--even if the search is restricted to a single repository. (2) This is compounded by GitHub "recently" started requiring additional steps in the authentication process for certain types of accounts without providing any option to opt-out (e.g. by choosing to restrict the account to being read-only/search-only/issue-only going forward). There is no dialogue, you accept whatever new restrictions/requirements are put in place or you lose access to the account which you were "convinced" to use to contribute & interact with FLOSS projects over the past N years. (What other choice do you have? Convincing every single FLOSS project to move from GitHub to...? Good luck!)
  - sigterminus 3y ago
    [dead]
- 418tpot 3y ago
  Some of the largest and most important software is developed over email, e.g. Linux, QEMU, Firefox, etc... Don't make the mistake thinking that email doesn't scale. In fact, for most teams, the opposite is true.
  - bitcharmer 3y ago
    This is like saying that pyramids were constructed without modern cranes and bulldozers so obviously it's the right way to build stuff today. It's clearly not true but there are many power-wielding individuals in these projects who prefer to browse the web with lynx or develop in emacs and will impose this on anyone that would like to participate. This is wrong.
    - r053bud 3y ago
      No one is forcing you to contribute to, or even use, software that uses an email-based workflow. I’d also put money on the fact that the majority of contributors to Linux, an extremely successful free software project, prefer the email-based workflow.
      - bitcharmer 3y ago
        > No one is forcing you to contribute This is exactly the problematic attitude. I'm an OpenJDK author but not linux kernel contributor for mainly this reason. There are many people like me. > majority of contributors to Linux, an extremely successful free software project, prefer the email-based workflow This reminds me the many absurd conversations I had from my time in Goldman Sachs, few years ago. People with 15+ year tenures claiming Slang is the best answer to any- and everything. They just didn't know any better and stubbornly stuck to tooling and mindset straight out of 1995.
        necrotic_comp 3y ago
        Not to derail the conversation, but Slang is incredible. Its interface is old and archaic, sure, but it's the best and most expressive coding experience I've ever had. It took some getting used to (especially case-insensitive variables with spaces ?! and the UFOs) but I really enjoyed working in it. All of the other workflow tools, like Procmon, were icing on the cake. The internal cloud was just getting up to speed when I left, and that was more modern and also a joy to use. There's a lot to dislike about working there, but in my experience, the firmwide tooling was excellent.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > when it’s clear that if you use a web GUI for this you address a market of potential contributors that is three to six orders of magnitude larger. You cannot possibly claim that the other side needs to cite their sources and then throw numbers like that out without any backing.
pjerem 3y ago
I have no great love for GitHub, I avoid it for my own projects but their official cli client is pretty functional and there are just tons of other clients, graphical or not for GitHub, GitLab etc … I say that as someone who don’t like GitHub, but overall it’s far from the worst tool an employer may impose to its employees.
fodkodrasz 3y ago
In case of GitHub you have this for example : https://cli.github.com/ https://cli.github.com/ It is often used in GitHub CI workflows.
raincole 3y ago
GUI is fake-usability now? Fake Edit: Oh this is HN. Never mind then.
- BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
  Isn't it weird that such people bother installing a windowing system at all? Just work off the login terminal bro, it's perfection.
howenterprisey 3y ago
What on earth is "fake-usability"? It's more usable, just admit it.
- BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
  Fake-usability is when 97/100 software developers find something more usable, but it's fake because I've invested a lot of time doing it a different way and gotten used to it.
  - sigterminus 3y ago
    [dead]
keepamovin 3y ago
This is well said and insightful! I will reflect on this kind of phenomena and suspect I will be able to see it in the world going forward. Awareness of this will be useful to avoid the pitfalls described here. Thank you for making this contribution! :) I funnily think that many of the people poo-pooing the email patch method here, would just as merrily join in on HN were it an email mailing list collection, haha! :)

by ploum 3y ago

sneak 3y ago

“needlessly graphical” requires a citation when it’s clear that if you use a web GUI for this you address a market of potential contributors that is three to six orders of magnitude larger. srht is really designed for (and thus only really useful for) lone wolf developers who collaborate rarely, if ever, and with a very small number of collaborators who collaborate infrequently. It is not built for large teams with constant active collaboration, it falls down for this use case. It’s hobby software for hobby users. (I don’t think this is a bad thing, but you should be aware of the product design goals of its author.)

ploum 3y ago
[flagged]
- sneak 3y ago
  That’s your bias showing; GitHub is primarily designed for getting work done, as it is a paid service that needs to serve its customers.
  - earthboundkid 3y ago
    I think GitHub was designed for getting work done, but since Microsoft bought them, they are slowly moving into enshitification territory. For example, they have a homepage that is just a wanna be social media feed and the file contents pages have ads for Copilot and in general there are ads for VSCode and blah blah. It was pretty good, but it's going to get much worse. :-)
    - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
      I disagree on enshittification. The only practical change I've noticed in github usage is the improvements to code search, which has been unbelievably useful. It gives me the ability to do complex searches to find real usages of even the most obscure libraries, examples of poorly documented configuration files, and more, from any public repository hosted anywhere on github. That capability comes from both the large body of source code available to the platform, and the large amount of engineering work put into that particular feature. It is one of many usability benefits is not available anywhere else.
      - earthboundkid 3y ago
        The new code search stuff is very good, yes. "Enshitification" is rapidly becoming a meaningless term of disapproval, but it had a precise definition when Doctorow coined it: > This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. GitHub directed a huge surplus to developers compared to what came before it. Microsoft bought it and worked on furthering the lock in with Actions, and now the ship is slowly moving towards wringing the extra value out of us. It's not at the bottom of the hill yet, but it's definitely on the slope. They already have ads for themselves on it. The ads are just going to slowly creep outwards as necessary to produce a smooth revenue curve.
      - follower 3y ago
        > improvements to code search The enshittification related to this feature includes: (1) Code search is no longer available without being logged in to GitHub--even if the search is restricted to a single repository. (2) This is compounded by GitHub "recently" started requiring additional steps in the authentication process for certain types of accounts without providing any option to opt-out (e.g. by choosing to restrict the account to being read-only/search-only/issue-only going forward). There is no dialogue, you accept whatever new restrictions/requirements are put in place or you lose access to the account which you were "convinced" to use to contribute & interact with FLOSS projects over the past N years. (What other choice do you have? Convincing every single FLOSS project to move from GitHub to...? Good luck!)
- sigterminus 3y ago
  [dead]
418tpot 3y ago
Some of the largest and most important software is developed over email, e.g. Linux, QEMU, Firefox, etc... Don't make the mistake thinking that email doesn't scale. In fact, for most teams, the opposite is true.
- bitcharmer 3y ago
  This is like saying that pyramids were constructed without modern cranes and bulldozers so obviously it's the right way to build stuff today. It's clearly not true but there are many power-wielding individuals in these projects who prefer to browse the web with lynx or develop in emacs and will impose this on anyone that would like to participate. This is wrong.
  - r053bud 3y ago
    No one is forcing you to contribute to, or even use, software that uses an email-based workflow. I’d also put money on the fact that the majority of contributors to Linux, an extremely successful free software project, prefer the email-based workflow.
    - bitcharmer 3y ago
      > No one is forcing you to contribute This is exactly the problematic attitude. I'm an OpenJDK author but not linux kernel contributor for mainly this reason. There are many people like me. > majority of contributors to Linux, an extremely successful free software project, prefer the email-based workflow This reminds me the many absurd conversations I had from my time in Goldman Sachs, few years ago. People with 15+ year tenures claiming Slang is the best answer to any- and everything. They just didn't know any better and stubbornly stuck to tooling and mindset straight out of 1995.
      - necrotic_comp 3y ago
        Not to derail the conversation, but Slang is incredible. Its interface is old and archaic, sure, but it's the best and most expressive coding experience I've ever had. It took some getting used to (especially case-insensitive variables with spaces ?! and the UFOs) but I really enjoyed working in it. All of the other workflow tools, like Procmon, were icing on the cake. The internal cloud was just getting up to speed when I left, and that was more modern and also a joy to use. There's a lot to dislike about working there, but in my experience, the firmwide tooling was excellent.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> when it’s clear that if you use a web GUI for this you address a market of potential contributors that is three to six orders of magnitude larger. You cannot possibly claim that the other side needs to cite their sources and then throw numbers like that out without any backing.

pjerem 3y ago

I have no great love for GitHub, I avoid it for my own projects but their official cli client is pretty functional and there are just tons of other clients, graphical or not for GitHub, GitLab etc … I say that as someone who don’t like GitHub, but overall it’s far from the worst tool an employer may impose to its employees.

fodkodrasz 3y ago

In case of GitHub you have this for example : https://cli.github.com/ https://cli.github.com/ It is often used in GitHub CI workflows.

raincole 3y ago

GUI is fake-usability now? Fake Edit: Oh this is HN. Never mind then.

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
Isn't it weird that such people bother installing a windowing system at all? Just work off the login terminal bro, it's perfection.

howenterprisey 3y ago

What on earth is "fake-usability"? It's more usable, just admit it.

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
Fake-usability is when 97/100 software developers find something more usable, but it's fake because I've invested a lot of time doing it a different way and gotten used to it.
- sigterminus 3y ago
  [dead]

keepamovin 3y ago

This is well said and insightful! I will reflect on this kind of phenomena and suspect I will be able to see it in the world going forward. Awareness of this will be useful to avoid the pitfalls described here. Thank you for making this contribution! :) I funnily think that many of the people poo-pooing the email patch method here, would just as merrily join in on HN were it an email mailing list collection, haha! :)