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Github is great, they're working on some serious problems, and every service has downtime. But this is getting pretty serious. This is the 3rd time in these l

Github is great, they're working on some serious problems, and every service has downtime. But this is getting pretty serious. This is the 3rd time in these last few weeks there has been a "significant service outage" So much of a typical dev workflow is based around github, but more importantly a lot of new package managers use github as a base. Not being able to pull dependencies is a fairly big problem. I will continue to use github, because they're awesome. At the same time, we're going to have to start building around it to ensure our uptime isn't reliant on their (less than optimal) uptime.

anon1385 14y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_compu...
- badgar 14y ago
  Many other companies are able to implement web services without the reliability issues GitHub has experienced. As your parent poster explained, some unreliability is always tolerable, but GitHub is starting to cross that threshold. Your list of fallacies does nothing to address that very real complaint.
PommeDeTerre 14y ago
I've found it somewhat odd how, although advocating the use of a decentralized version control system, much of the git community has ended up heavily centralized on GitHub.
- jeremyjh 14y ago
  It is a distributed system. You still have to have shared remotes in order to integrate branches.
  - snogglethorpe 14y ago
    Yup, when github barfs, you can still happily keep on hacking. You're also not limited to one shared repo by any means, so even synchronization between multiple developers can continue when github is down. To avoid problems it's of course a good idea when one of the repos is a "master", and if using a secondary repo for synchronization when the master is down, you'll probably want to switch to unique temporary branches for the purpose.
    - jaequery 14y ago
      well, lot of open-source projects depend on github as source of their code distribution. github is like the new sourceforge these days.
    - yakiv 14y ago
      One possible backup would be Bitbucket (https://bitbucket.orghttps://bitbucket.org/ https://bitbucket.orghttps://bitbucket.org/). (I'm not affiliated Bitbucket in any way. I don't profit from them doing well, aside from them sticking around to keep providing free hosting for me.)
      - ajross 14y ago
        Another possible backup is any host on the internet. Seriously, dump it into a static file directory on any old web server or run a trivial git server. Send deltas with patch files. It's not even harder than github is, just uglier.
      - bitcartel 14y ago
        If you want to use your own servers, Atlassian (who own Bitbucket) recently released Stash, a competitor to Github Enterprise. Pricing is very good and if you have a commercial license, you also get the source code.
        lflux 14y ago
        I've evaluated Stash a couple times, and I feel that Gitlab still has it beat.
- jaequery 14y ago
  perhaps there maybe a way to somehow sync-up github w/ bitbucket to act as a single master origin. so we can use either or and they'll be synchronized automatically. or some company that can just act as a mirror to github would be great.
  - steevdave 14y ago
    You can set git up to push to multiple repos.
    - jayunit 14y ago
      http://stackoverflow.com/a/3195446 http://stackoverflow.com/a/3195446 - just set this up on a project the other day to have an "all" origin push to github and heroku.
rsobers 14y ago
So setup 1 small git server that mirrors your most critical repositories which devs can failover to in the event GitHub is down _exactly_ when you need to integrate changes. I wouldn't call this "building around" GitHub. Git's nature promotes this kind of thing.
- michaelsbradley 14y ago
  In a similar vein, one could failover to mirrors of critical repositories hosted on another GitHub-like service, e.g. Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/ https://bitbucket.org/
daenz 14y ago
The beauty of decentralized version control is a node going down doesn't kill your workflow. In a pinch, you could use git bundle to exchange commits with other developers: http://git-scm.com/2010/03/10/bundles.html http://git-scm.com/2010/03/10/bundles.html
- bascule 14y ago
  This is great until you depend on anything you actually have to fetch from Github. Bundling project dependencies from git comes to mind
- pbiggar 14y ago
  Unless you need to run a bundle install (or npm install, or whatever) and have github urls in your Gemfile.
  - robryan 14y ago
    Does Bundler allow for multiple gem sources to be specified (on a gem by gem basis)?
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      I'm not 100% positive on the specifics, but I've never seen it used. I suspect its not possible. (context: I make https://circleci.com https://circleci.com - a continuous integration company for web apps, often Rails. We occasionally get support requests that allow/ask us to look at Gemfiles, so I've seen an above average number of Gemfiles. However, I more often see the stdout of the `bundle install` command, which shows GitHub being accessed).
    - skateinmars 14y ago
      Yes, you can specify a git repo in your Gemfile (and optional tags/branches) : gem "rails", :github => "rails/rails", :tag => 'v3.2.11' You can also specify multiple gem sources (http://gembundler.com/v1.2/gemfile.html http://gembundler.com/v1.2/gemfile.html), but usually only rubygems.org is used unless you need a private geù repository.
darkchasma 14y ago
This is what I think may be their biggest problem. Because of the outages, and due to my own stupidity, I have been caught with my pants down twice because Github was always just up. And then I thought, well, lesson learned, they won't go down again, and ker-pow (I'm stupid like that). So I have had to create a secondary remote, and for private projects, it's really easy to do so. Which is kinda problematic, because those are the accounts that keep the lights on for Github. If I have to cut budget, it's a lot more likely now that I would consider cutting the private repos. I just hope they figure this out soon, so I can forget about how easy it was.

anon1385 14y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_compu...

badgar 14y ago
Many other companies are able to implement web services without the reliability issues GitHub has experienced. As your parent poster explained, some unreliability is always tolerable, but GitHub is starting to cross that threshold. Your list of fallacies does nothing to address that very real complaint.

PommeDeTerre 14y ago

I've found it somewhat odd how, although advocating the use of a decentralized version control system, much of the git community has ended up heavily centralized on GitHub.

jeremyjh 14y ago
It is a distributed system. You still have to have shared remotes in order to integrate branches.
- snogglethorpe 14y ago
  Yup, when github barfs, you can still happily keep on hacking. You're also not limited to one shared repo by any means, so even synchronization between multiple developers can continue when github is down. To avoid problems it's of course a good idea when one of the repos is a "master", and if using a secondary repo for synchronization when the master is down, you'll probably want to switch to unique temporary branches for the purpose.
  - jaequery 14y ago
    well, lot of open-source projects depend on github as source of their code distribution. github is like the new sourceforge these days.
  - yakiv 14y ago
    One possible backup would be Bitbucket (https://bitbucket.orghttps://bitbucket.org/ https://bitbucket.orghttps://bitbucket.org/). (I'm not affiliated Bitbucket in any way. I don't profit from them doing well, aside from them sticking around to keep providing free hosting for me.)
    - ajross 14y ago
      Another possible backup is any host on the internet. Seriously, dump it into a static file directory on any old web server or run a trivial git server. Send deltas with patch files. It's not even harder than github is, just uglier.
    - bitcartel 14y ago
      If you want to use your own servers, Atlassian (who own Bitbucket) recently released Stash, a competitor to Github Enterprise. Pricing is very good and if you have a commercial license, you also get the source code.
      - lflux 14y ago
        I've evaluated Stash a couple times, and I feel that Gitlab still has it beat.
jaequery 14y ago
perhaps there maybe a way to somehow sync-up github w/ bitbucket to act as a single master origin. so we can use either or and they'll be synchronized automatically. or some company that can just act as a mirror to github would be great.
- steevdave 14y ago
  You can set git up to push to multiple repos.
  - jayunit 14y ago
    http://stackoverflow.com/a/3195446 http://stackoverflow.com/a/3195446 - just set this up on a project the other day to have an "all" origin push to github and heroku.

rsobers 14y ago

So setup 1 small git server that mirrors your most critical repositories which devs can failover to in the event GitHub is down _exactly_ when you need to integrate changes. I wouldn't call this "building around" GitHub. Git's nature promotes this kind of thing.

michaelsbradley 14y ago
In a similar vein, one could failover to mirrors of critical repositories hosted on another GitHub-like service, e.g. Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/ https://bitbucket.org/

daenz 14y ago

The beauty of decentralized version control is a node going down doesn't kill your workflow. In a pinch, you could use git bundle to exchange commits with other developers: http://git-scm.com/2010/03/10/bundles.html http://git-scm.com/2010/03/10/bundles.html

bascule 14y ago
This is great until you depend on anything you actually have to fetch from Github. Bundling project dependencies from git comes to mind
pbiggar 14y ago
Unless you need to run a bundle install (or npm install, or whatever) and have github urls in your Gemfile.
- robryan 14y ago
  Does Bundler allow for multiple gem sources to be specified (on a gem by gem basis)?
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    I'm not 100% positive on the specifics, but I've never seen it used. I suspect its not possible. (context: I make https://circleci.com https://circleci.com - a continuous integration company for web apps, often Rails. We occasionally get support requests that allow/ask us to look at Gemfiles, so I've seen an above average number of Gemfiles. However, I more often see the stdout of the `bundle install` command, which shows GitHub being accessed).
  - skateinmars 14y ago
    Yes, you can specify a git repo in your Gemfile (and optional tags/branches) : gem "rails", :github => "rails/rails", :tag => 'v3.2.11' You can also specify multiple gem sources (http://gembundler.com/v1.2/gemfile.html http://gembundler.com/v1.2/gemfile.html), but usually only rubygems.org is used unless you need a private geù repository.

darkchasma 14y ago

This is what I think may be their biggest problem. Because of the outages, and due to my own stupidity, I have been caught with my pants down twice because Github was always just up. And then I thought, well, lesson learned, they won't go down again, and ker-pow (I'm stupid like that). So I have had to create a secondary remote, and for private projects, it's really easy to do so. Which is kinda problematic, because those are the accounts that keep the lights on for Github. If I have to cut budget, it's a lot more likely now that I would consider cutting the private repos. I just hope they figure this out soon, so I can forget about how easy it was.