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Upvote downvote system for Git repo

3 points by grass_blade 3y ago

When i try to search for ready to use tools, I search on github, many times I find large number of repos promising to provide the functionality I want, so I clone it, follow instructions and realize that its not working. Is there any way we can find (may be upvote downvote similar to stack overflow) that the repo code is working correctly and we can use it if we follow the instructions in the readme file. In short I want to know if someone used this repo and it worked for them. Kind of product reviews on Amazon or something similar so I can reliably clone and use the repo. Any suggestions are appreciated.

armchairhacker 3y ago
Check out the GitHub issues. If the project doesn't have recent commits and the latest issue is "X no longer works", then it probably no longer works. If you do download the project and get a build issue, someone may have the same issue with an environment similar to yours, the environment may be the problem and there will be a workaround. Or it could be a common mistake most people make, and the developer just hasn't updated the code/documentation to address it, so nearly everyone who downloads the project runs into it and then goes to that one issue for the resolution. Long-standing, serious issues with no responses from the author are a red flag for a buggy project (very minor issues and "issues" which are actually documentation changes and suggestions are OK, even if there are a lot, because they may not be worth the time to investigate). Also look at the # of open and closed issues, because very large repos will have more open issues even if they're very stable, but they will also have a lot more resolved, and any longstanding major issues will have discussion from the developers explaining why they still haven't been fixed.
- grass_blade 3y ago
  Thank you so much for your reply, these are all valid points, and I will consider them for identifying working repos. My major problem comes from repo that does not have any issues. for example I m looking for a calculator (may not be a good example), I see a repo that claims its providing a calculator app. There are no issues listed. In this case it is helpful to know if someone else tried this repo and it works fine. Cause I imagine there would be hundreds of repos that might claim they provide a calculator. I just want to save time by not cloning any non-working repos. But yeh, your points are very helpful.

3 points by grass_blade 3y ago

armchairhacker 3y ago

Check out the GitHub issues. If the project doesn't have recent commits and the latest issue is "X no longer works", then it probably no longer works. If you do download the project and get a build issue, someone may have the same issue with an environment similar to yours, the environment may be the problem and there will be a workaround. Or it could be a common mistake most people make, and the developer just hasn't updated the code/documentation to address it, so nearly everyone who downloads the project runs into it and then goes to that one issue for the resolution. Long-standing, serious issues with no responses from the author are a red flag for a buggy project (very minor issues and "issues" which are actually documentation changes and suggestions are OK, even if there are a lot, because they may not be worth the time to investigate). Also look at the # of open and closed issues, because very large repos will have more open issues even if they're very stable, but they will also have a lot more resolved, and any longstanding major issues will have discussion from the developers explaining why they still haven't been fixed.

grass_blade 3y ago
Thank you so much for your reply, these are all valid points, and I will consider them for identifying working repos. My major problem comes from repo that does not have any issues. for example I m looking for a calculator (may not be a good example), I see a repo that claims its providing a calculator app. There are no issues listed. In this case it is helpful to know if someone else tried this repo and it works fine. Cause I imagine there would be hundreds of repos that might claim they provide a calculator. I just want to save time by not cloning any non-working repos. But yeh, your points are very helpful.