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I don't use gists. Haven't found a need I guess. If they work and there's nothing missing, what effort would they put into them?

by jjayj 2y ago

dewey 2y ago
Same reason people think a project is abandoned if it doesn’t get a „bug fixes and improvements“ update shipped every month.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  > Same reason people think a project is abandoned if it doesn’t get a „bug fixed and improvement“ update shipped every month. Good point. Any new product should have $X bugs/month added by the current developers so that future developers can indicate 'signs of life' by fixing $Y bugs/month![1] TBH, once a product reaches whatever goal the founders set out to achieve, adding features can only make it worse, not better. Bugfixes, refinements? Sure. Extra features? Can only heighten the learning curve for newcomers in the future, even if the incremental learning curve added is small. [1] With suitable values for $X and $Y so that a project can show slow and steady improvement in reliability, until the inevitable rewrite 12 months later.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Isn't it easier just to adjust the wording or typos in the comments so that it looks like activity without troubling yourself with actual changes to give the same look?
    - jjayj 2y ago
      You could probably just release the same commit again with a different number.
  - groestl 2y ago
    > adding features can only make it worse, not better. There are exceptions, but software is usually part of a system, a social system. Successful software changes its environment, and in turn, the environment demands change from the software, which diligent maintainers attend to. It follows that, in the general case, "no change in a long time" is a pretty good indicator that the software is either unsuccessful or abandoned. As I said, there are exceptions (gists might be one of them).
    - CRConrad 2y ago
      > It follows that, in the general case, "no change in a long time" is a pretty good indicator that the software is either unsuccessful or abandoned. Or just exceptionally well adapted to a stable social environment. Which might even be so stable precisely because the software is working so well that no changes to either software or social system -- business processes -- are required.
      - groestl 2y ago
        Agreed, as you say it _exceptionally_ well adapted. Where the loop has basically reached a fixed point. As software is a relatively new phenomenon, maybe we'll reach a fixed point for most software in a few hundred years.
- ashryan 2y ago
  I see what you mean here. I tend to agree that Gists seems relatively feature-complete (at least for my basic use case; I can’t speak for others). For my part, I’m reacting to Gists’ place in the overall GitHub UX. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels heavily implied that Gists aren’t part of the golden path.

I don't use gists. Haven't found a need I guess. If they work and there's nothing missing, what effort would they put into them?

by jjayj 2y ago

I don't use gists. Haven't found a need I guess. If they work and there's nothing missing, what effort would they put into them?

dewey 2y ago

Same reason people think a project is abandoned if it doesn’t get a „bug fixes and improvements“ update shipped every month.

lelanthran 2y ago
> Same reason people think a project is abandoned if it doesn’t get a „bug fixed and improvement“ update shipped every month. Good point. Any new product should have $X bugs/month added by the current developers so that future developers can indicate 'signs of life' by fixing $Y bugs/month![1] TBH, once a product reaches whatever goal the founders set out to achieve, adding features can only make it worse, not better. Bugfixes, refinements? Sure. Extra features? Can only heighten the learning curve for newcomers in the future, even if the incremental learning curve added is small. [1] With suitable values for $X and $Y so that a project can show slow and steady improvement in reliability, until the inevitable rewrite 12 months later.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Isn't it easier just to adjust the wording or typos in the comments so that it looks like activity without troubling yourself with actual changes to give the same look?
  - jjayj 2y ago
    You could probably just release the same commit again with a different number.
- groestl 2y ago
  > adding features can only make it worse, not better. There are exceptions, but software is usually part of a system, a social system. Successful software changes its environment, and in turn, the environment demands change from the software, which diligent maintainers attend to. It follows that, in the general case, "no change in a long time" is a pretty good indicator that the software is either unsuccessful or abandoned. As I said, there are exceptions (gists might be one of them).
  - CRConrad 2y ago
    > It follows that, in the general case, "no change in a long time" is a pretty good indicator that the software is either unsuccessful or abandoned. Or just exceptionally well adapted to a stable social environment. Which might even be so stable precisely because the software is working so well that no changes to either software or social system -- business processes -- are required.
    - groestl 2y ago
      Agreed, as you say it _exceptionally_ well adapted. Where the loop has basically reached a fixed point. As software is a relatively new phenomenon, maybe we'll reach a fixed point for most software in a few hundred years.
ashryan 2y ago
I see what you mean here. I tend to agree that Gists seems relatively feature-complete (at least for my basic use case; I can’t speak for others). For my part, I’m reacting to Gists’ place in the overall GitHub UX. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels heavily implied that Gists aren’t part of the golden path.