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What on earth is the social component of GitHub? I assume I’m missing what’s useful to people here as it keeps getting brought up, but what is it? Is it the sta

by IanCal 5mo ago

What on earth is the social component of GitHub? I assume I’m missing what’s useful to people here as it keeps getting brought up, but what is it? Is it the stars on a repo? Are people doing something else big with all of this?

gchamonlive 5mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48123524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48123524
- IanCal 5mo ago
  The vast majority of that doesn’t require anything like GitHub though, that’s just having multiple users. At a push you could have the same thing massively more spread out using GitHub purely as auth.
  - gchamonlive 5mo ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
    - IanCal 5mo ago
      Totally different thing, and if you don’t want to engage don’t, this is simply rude.
      - gchamonlive 5mo ago
        > this is simply rude Look, you are the one that opened with "What on earth is the social component of GitHub?". What's the semantic function of that specific construction if not being completely ironic, like you decided I was wrong before engaging? > if you don’t want to engage don’t I am engaging, you just don't like that I'm not spelling it out. This is perfectly within the community guidelines. > Totally different thing It's just the same thing, you both are ignoring how important convenience is.
        IanCal 5mo ago
        I'm not sure how to make it clearer. I do not understand what the "social" component of github is that people are using so heavily that it's a big thing to break from and requires huge centralisation, that it is the "most important aspect of the platform". I said that I assume I am missing something because I don't see much that really ties all these things together, and nothing like the network effects of, say, X or facebook. All you've pointed to is devs working together and people filing bugs. All that requires is auth, no? Is that it? Is an SSO button really this enormous hurdle? > It's just the same thing, Saying dropbox is irrelevant because all end users could just "build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." is not the same as saying "what is the social aspect of github?". Closer is what I've argued elsewhere, which is that multiple different hosts running (something like) gitea selling cloud based storage as a service would be extremely close to github for end users. And it would be identical for what you've talked about wouldn't it? > you both are ignoring how important convenience is. The convenience of what, specifically? Not having to click an SSO button on a new website?
        gchamonlive 5mo ago
        > All you've pointed to is devs working together and people filing bugs. All that requires is auth, no? Collaboration is a form of socialization. GitHub made a social network on top of a SVN to create a forge that people can interact with each other creating issues, pull requests, reviewing and commenting on them, engaging in discussions, forking and improving upon each others works... These are not "just auth" and it's not something git solves by itself. I really don't know how to make this clearer either, sorry. Maybe it's this is the kind of thing that you see it and you get it or you don't, I don't know. For me and apparently for lots of people in this thread that makes sense.
        IanCal 5mo ago
        I know git doesn't do this by itself, but then we're not talking about github vs raw git - perhaps that's where you're confused by what I'm saying. All these other services have what you're talking about, and the only cross-repo/org work I can see here is: * Aligned accounts (person X on one service is person Y on github), if you want that continuity across services * Forking And the whole forking/branching/merging side is handled by raw git. That's why I've been asking what githubs huge centralisation gets us. It has a UI and features that are useful, great, those exist in other projects too, so what is the stickiness?
nozzlegear 5mo ago
Before everyone started plopping their one-off AI bullshit[†] onto Github 40 times per day, I used to love going to Github's homepage feed to see what people I follow were interacting with on Github (contributing to, forking, opening issues on, and yes, starring). It was a great way to discover new projects and tech that I might want to use. I'd found many open source dotnet packages that way, which made their way into my projects' dependencies. I've sponsored some and contributed to others as well, all thanks to Github's discovery. [†] I occasionally have AI write one-off bullshit too, so I'm not casting stones. It's just overwhelmed the discovery signal with noise.
nijave 5mo ago
Issue tracker, code reviews
- IanCal 5mo ago
  Is that what people mean? Just the multi user side of it?
  - troad 5mo ago
    Issue trackers and discussions on FOSS projects are effectively a public forum, and on any public forum people start building brands and identities. Add comment reactions and GitHub stars into the mix and you have a vicarious karma system whereby people's projects jostle in popularity and people try to build reputations. For some people, GitHub is more of a social network than a VCS tool. GitHub is also somewhat entangled with junior hiring in compsci, meaning there's a tangible economic incentive in building a hireable profile that a recruiter might like. (Or at least that is a widespread belief.) None of this has much to do with git, the VCS tool, nor is GH-as-a-social-network objectively very important, but it's natural to place outsized importance on a community in which one is active, and there's a significant overlap in the HN commentariat and GH users. So you'll probably hear more about the claimed social utility of GH here than in the real world. Hope this helps clarify what people are talking about. :)

by IanCal 5mo ago

gchamonlive 5mo ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48123524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48123524

IanCal 5mo ago
The vast majority of that doesn’t require anything like GitHub though, that’s just having multiple users. At a push you could have the same thing massively more spread out using GitHub purely as auth.
- gchamonlive 5mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
  - IanCal 5mo ago
    Totally different thing, and if you don’t want to engage don’t, this is simply rude.
    - gchamonlive 5mo ago
      > this is simply rude Look, you are the one that opened with "What on earth is the social component of GitHub?". What's the semantic function of that specific construction if not being completely ironic, like you decided I was wrong before engaging? > if you don’t want to engage don’t I am engaging, you just don't like that I'm not spelling it out. This is perfectly within the community guidelines. > Totally different thing It's just the same thing, you both are ignoring how important convenience is.
      - IanCal 5mo ago
        I'm not sure how to make it clearer. I do not understand what the "social" component of github is that people are using so heavily that it's a big thing to break from and requires huge centralisation, that it is the "most important aspect of the platform". I said that I assume I am missing something because I don't see much that really ties all these things together, and nothing like the network effects of, say, X or facebook. All you've pointed to is devs working together and people filing bugs. All that requires is auth, no? Is that it? Is an SSO button really this enormous hurdle? > It's just the same thing, Saying dropbox is irrelevant because all end users could just "build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem." is not the same as saying "what is the social aspect of github?". Closer is what I've argued elsewhere, which is that multiple different hosts running (something like) gitea selling cloud based storage as a service would be extremely close to github for end users. And it would be identical for what you've talked about wouldn't it? > you both are ignoring how important convenience is. The convenience of what, specifically? Not having to click an SSO button on a new website?
        gchamonlive 5mo ago
        > All you've pointed to is devs working together and people filing bugs. All that requires is auth, no? Collaboration is a form of socialization. GitHub made a social network on top of a SVN to create a forge that people can interact with each other creating issues, pull requests, reviewing and commenting on them, engaging in discussions, forking and improving upon each others works... These are not "just auth" and it's not something git solves by itself. I really don't know how to make this clearer either, sorry. Maybe it's this is the kind of thing that you see it and you get it or you don't, I don't know. For me and apparently for lots of people in this thread that makes sense.
        IanCal 5mo ago
        I know git doesn't do this by itself, but then we're not talking about github vs raw git - perhaps that's where you're confused by what I'm saying. All these other services have what you're talking about, and the only cross-repo/org work I can see here is: * Aligned accounts (person X on one service is person Y on github), if you want that continuity across services * Forking And the whole forking/branching/merging side is handled by raw git. That's why I've been asking what githubs huge centralisation gets us. It has a UI and features that are useful, great, those exist in other projects too, so what is the stickiness?

nozzlegear 5mo ago

Before everyone started plopping their one-off AI bullshit[†] onto Github 40 times per day, I used to love going to Github's homepage feed to see what people I follow were interacting with on Github (contributing to, forking, opening issues on, and yes, starring). It was a great way to discover new projects and tech that I might want to use. I'd found many open source dotnet packages that way, which made their way into my projects' dependencies. I've sponsored some and contributed to others as well, all thanks to Github's discovery. [†] I occasionally have AI write one-off bullshit too, so I'm not casting stones. It's just overwhelmed the discovery signal with noise.

nijave 5mo ago

Issue tracker, code reviews

IanCal 5mo ago
Is that what people mean? Just the multi user side of it?
- troad 5mo ago
  Issue trackers and discussions on FOSS projects are effectively a public forum, and on any public forum people start building brands and identities. Add comment reactions and GitHub stars into the mix and you have a vicarious karma system whereby people's projects jostle in popularity and people try to build reputations. For some people, GitHub is more of a social network than a VCS tool. GitHub is also somewhat entangled with junior hiring in compsci, meaning there's a tangible economic incentive in building a hireable profile that a recruiter might like. (Or at least that is a widespread belief.) None of this has much to do with git, the VCS tool, nor is GH-as-a-social-network objectively very important, but it's natural to place outsized importance on a community in which one is active, and there's a significant overlap in the HN commentariat and GH users. So you'll probably hear more about the claimed social utility of GH here than in the real world. Hope this helps clarify what people are talking about. :)