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I feel like I’m out of the loop, or maybe I’m just not a super GitHub power user, but GitHub does pretty much what I expect and I haven’t had issues with it. Al

I feel like I’m out of the loop, or maybe I’m just not a super GitHub power user, but GitHub does pretty much what I expect and I haven’t had issues with it. All my git commands for GitHub just work and PRs and code reviews are the same as it’s always been. Can someone explain what exactly is so bad now that leaving it entirely to use some new platform, even spinning up your own servers, is a reasonable alternative?

baq 6mo ago
something reliably breaks 7 am PST (sometimes earlier) if you're using anything more than the git command line and sometimes (not too often, true) even the git protocol breaks.
- sleepybrett 6mo ago
  but only on days that end in y.
embedding-shape 6mo ago
> and PRs and code reviews are the same as it’s always been When they changed the PR view to not display all the changes at once, was the moment I said "I really need to find something else", not only is the platform very unreliable (at least from Spain), but most product changes they do are making the platform less efficient for me as a developer to use. > Can someone explain what exactly is so bad now that leaving it entirely to use some new platform, even spinning up your own servers, is a reasonable alternative? It always was, but network-effect of GitHub been large. But seemingly not infinite, at one point people start favoring "Being able to access platform" over "people can star my repository" it seems.
giwook 6mo ago
Their stability and reliability has deteriorated significantly. So much so that they stopped posting uptime metrics for a while on their status page and an independent 3rd party created a website just for this: https://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/ https://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/ (not my website) According to that website, which unsurprisingly reports a lower number than what Github themselves claim, Github uptime is down to ~86%. And if you work in the space, you know how terrible that is, but even more so for such a critical piece of infrastructure.
- hobofan 6mo ago
  > which unsurprisingly reports a lower number than what Github themselves claim Yes, because it throws all partial outages into one bucket, which is a dumb idea because the bigger a platform becomes with more loosely coupled components the more untainable high uptime number become. Looking through the incidents, a good portion of them are regarding Copilot and Codespaces, two products I couldn't care about less. I do also have my regular run-ins with Github outages, but that website is just hyperbolic.
  - giwook 6mo ago
    Github's own status page seems just as hyperbolic. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. And not sure how your individual preferences invalidate others' experiences with the platform. To be frank Copilot is likely one of their most visible and in-demand products as it was a very cost-effective way to access frontier models (and are unsurprisingly nerfing usage limits in a month).
flohofwoe 6mo ago
When using it every day (and especially when using Github Actions), there's something broken or half-broken nearly every day. Most random errors in Github Actions (e.g. jobs just randomly failing or getting stuck and requiring a manual restart, or just being plain slow) also never show up on the Github Status page. The Github Actions VMs are also so slow that I'm seriously pondering setting up a cheap throw-away laptop at home as runner, that would easily be 10x faster. But then we're at playing IT admin at home :/
- mitchjj 6mo ago
  Another option is Buildkite with hybrid architecture... Your hardware, our control plane, managed through GUI or CLI. Instant agent push, run up to over 100k concurrent agents, fan out jobs, generate pipelines at runtime...
tclancy 6mo ago
It's more if you use it for things beyond traditional dev work. GitHub Actions have become very unstable plus someone using it at this level where people are trying to download/ file issues/ send code up 24/7 would feel the pain of every outage, not just those that happen during one's working hours.
argee 6mo ago
I’m a relatively casual user of GitHub and even I’ve run into availability issues when pushing up changes. Your comment makes it sound like you don’t use GitHub much at all or maybe are in some time zone or AZ that’s somehow insulated.
realusername 6mo ago
They have less uptime than my home NAS, this is the #1 thing that is wrong with it. And the most recent bug is "we added random code to some PR and some PR became invisible" which is a wtf bug which should be impossible to exist.
- smrq 6mo ago
  "We made merging to main silently drop some commits from main" was another good one recently. If GH had only one job, not doing that would be it.

baq 6mo ago

something reliably breaks 7 am PST (sometimes earlier) if you're using anything more than the git command line and sometimes (not too often, true) even the git protocol breaks.

sleepybrett 6mo ago
but only on days that end in y.

embedding-shape 6mo ago

> and PRs and code reviews are the same as it’s always been When they changed the PR view to not display all the changes at once, was the moment I said "I really need to find something else", not only is the platform very unreliable (at least from Spain), but most product changes they do are making the platform less efficient for me as a developer to use. > Can someone explain what exactly is so bad now that leaving it entirely to use some new platform, even spinning up your own servers, is a reasonable alternative? It always was, but network-effect of GitHub been large. But seemingly not infinite, at one point people start favoring "Being able to access platform" over "people can star my repository" it seems.

giwook 6mo ago

Their stability and reliability has deteriorated significantly. So much so that they stopped posting uptime metrics for a while on their status page and an independent 3rd party created a website just for this: https://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/ https://mrshu.github.io/github-statuses/ (not my website) According to that website, which unsurprisingly reports a lower number than what Github themselves claim, Github uptime is down to ~86%. And if you work in the space, you know how terrible that is, but even more so for such a critical piece of infrastructure.

hobofan 6mo ago
> which unsurprisingly reports a lower number than what Github themselves claim Yes, because it throws all partial outages into one bucket, which is a dumb idea because the bigger a platform becomes with more loosely coupled components the more untainable high uptime number become. Looking through the incidents, a good portion of them are regarding Copilot and Codespaces, two products I couldn't care about less. I do also have my regular run-ins with Github outages, but that website is just hyperbolic.
- giwook 6mo ago
  Github's own status page seems just as hyperbolic. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. And not sure how your individual preferences invalidate others' experiences with the platform. To be frank Copilot is likely one of their most visible and in-demand products as it was a very cost-effective way to access frontier models (and are unsurprisingly nerfing usage limits in a month).

flohofwoe 6mo ago

When using it every day (and especially when using Github Actions), there's something broken or half-broken nearly every day. Most random errors in Github Actions (e.g. jobs just randomly failing or getting stuck and requiring a manual restart, or just being plain slow) also never show up on the Github Status page. The Github Actions VMs are also so slow that I'm seriously pondering setting up a cheap throw-away laptop at home as runner, that would easily be 10x faster. But then we're at playing IT admin at home :/

mitchjj 6mo ago
Another option is Buildkite with hybrid architecture... Your hardware, our control plane, managed through GUI or CLI. Instant agent push, run up to over 100k concurrent agents, fan out jobs, generate pipelines at runtime...

tclancy 6mo ago

It's more if you use it for things beyond traditional dev work. GitHub Actions have become very unstable plus someone using it at this level where people are trying to download/ file issues/ send code up 24/7 would feel the pain of every outage, not just those that happen during one's working hours.

argee 6mo ago

I’m a relatively casual user of GitHub and even I’ve run into availability issues when pushing up changes. Your comment makes it sound like you don’t use GitHub much at all or maybe are in some time zone or AZ that’s somehow insulated.

realusername 6mo ago

They have less uptime than my home NAS, this is the #1 thing that is wrong with it. And the most recent bug is "we added random code to some PR and some PR became invisible" which is a wtf bug which should be impossible to exist.

smrq 6mo ago
"We made merging to main silently drop some commits from main" was another good one recently. If GH had only one job, not doing that would be it.