6 ms·

Projects that power GitHub

164 points by waffle_ss 13y ago

neya 13y ago
Is there a reason why Github runs on it's own fork of Rails (I believe it's 2.3 or something), when they could just upgrade to Rails 4, from the official Master (which is faster and probably more stable AND most importantly with most security bugs fixed)?? Pardon me if I sound stupid, I'm just trying to understand why.
- davidw 13y ago
  The Rails 2.3 -> 3 upgrade is not exactly a walk in the park.
- chc 13y ago
  "Just upgrade to Rails 4." Five words, months and months of hair loss. There is a lot less radical change and a lot more focus on compatibility in Rails nowadays, and yet upgrading a substantial app to a new version of Rails is still a shaky proposition. For a lot of companies, the gigantic leap from 2.3 to 3 was more trouble than just paying somebody to maintain 2.3.
- freedrull 13y ago
  I believe they have upgraded to 3, thanks to @tmm1. It was mentioned in some talk, probably by Zach Holman.
  - bnferguson 13y ago
    Significant work has been done by tmm1, rsanheim and a host of others, but it's not complete yet. Basically, the work is on-going and pretty amazing to watch!
- kneath 13y ago
  From my perspective, there have been a few different reasons why we haven't just upgraded: 1. Time spent upgrading Rails is time not spent building awesome things for our customers to use. We're extremely customer focused. 2. Performance is also a huge concern of ours. Over the past few years we've driven response times down dramatically. Upgrading Rails not only presents a slower framework (Rails 3/4 is not faster than 2.3), but a different architecture — changing where our performance chokes are. We'd have to do a ton of work on this front just to keep performance steady. Again, time spent here is time not spent making our existing infrastructure faster. 3. We've spent the past three years working on upgrading the stack. It's not so black and white — we have many of the benefits of newer rails without needing to upgrade everything. There has been a lot of effort here. In my own personal experience, upgrading frameworks is generally the fastest way to create bugs and work on the opposite of customer impact. I don't think you should feel like you have to be on the bleeding edge.
  - wasd 13y ago
    As per number 2, are these GH specific or can they be sent upstream?
    - bnferguson 13y ago
      Not completely sure all the blockers but I think it may have to do with 2.3 being in maintenance mode (may even be unsupported at this point). Either way, being able to contribute back is definitely one of the things people are looking forward to about being on a current version. I've heard a few mention they'd love to be able to send any Rails performance bits upstream much like we see with the Ruby patches lately.
  - neya 13y ago
    Thank you, that was informative :)
aantix 13y ago
Is it true that Github runs a custom Rails fork? And if so, which version is it forked from?
- dham 13y ago
  I can't find the post right now but I believe it's 2.3 with 3.x features put in, like asset pipeline.
- tenderlove 13y ago
  Yes it's true (AFAIK). It's a fork of 2.3, and you can find it here: https://github.com/github/rails https://github.com/github/rails
binarymax 13y ago
Missing something? :) https://github.com/git/git https://github.com/git/git
- nightpool 13y ago
  Actually, they use https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2 https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2 to create and manage Git repos. "libgit2 is a portable, pure C implementation of the Git core methods" (You can find that listed on the page)
  - ethomson 13y ago
    Since libgit2 is not yet feature complete when compared to git core, I'm quite certain that they use both. (For example, libgit2 did not have merge until relatively recently, so they could not be using it to power pull requests.)
  - peff 13y ago
    No, GitHub primarily uses regular git on the backend. It powers all fetches and pushes, diffs, and most of the history traversals. Some functionality is provided by libgit2, and it's ever-increasing because libgit2/Rugged is often more natural to call from ruby code (though a lot of it is replacing old Grit code, not git itself). libgit2 powers much of GitHub's desktop apps, with regular git mostly filling in any functionality still missing from libgit2.
  - bch 13y ago
    Last I heard (couple months ago) it was used for a couple or three pieces of functionality only. Based on my experience with it (master incredibly stale, not recommended, and the recommended "development" brittle and buggy), that's not surprising at all...
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - ethomson 13y ago
      I'm sorry if you've found the development branch to be buggy - we strive for a high-level of stability there, so we'd be very pleased if you would open issues there.
jweir 13y ago
No mention of Resque. Is Github still using it, or moved on? https://github.com/resque/resque/tree/1-x-stable https://github.com/resque/resque/tree/1-x-stable [edit -- thanks, I see that it is on the list now.]
- rsanheim 13y ago
  We still use resque.
the1 13y ago
where is https://github.com/sexist/julie https://github.com/sexist/julie ?
AndyKelley 13y ago
What could I do to get my JavaScript game engine[1] listed on the JavaScript game engines showcase page[2]? Or my music player server[3] on the music showcase[4]? [1]: https://github.com/andrewrk/chem https://github.com/andrewrk/chem [2]: https://github.com/showcases/javascript-game-engines https://github.com/showcases/javascript-game-engines [3]: https://github.com/andrewrk/groovebasin https://github.com/andrewrk/groovebasin [4]: https://github.com/showcases/music https://github.com/showcases/music
dpick 13y ago
Is there a special library used to power the comments editor? I'd love to have a library that let me do drag and drop images into markdown.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
umrashrf 13y ago
thanks for letting me know what should I learn beforehand to work at Github!
seanconaty 13y ago
So happy PJAX made the list. With all the JS frameworks out there I think this is the least appreciated.
mcmire 13y ago
Wonder if they manually curate these lists or if they initially populated them with some sort of machine learning?
- bnferguson 13y ago
  These are manually curated at the moment. Though the selections may be inspired by machines. Or rabbits. Hard to say.
igravious 13y ago
Hey Github peeps! Hubot apparently occasionally looses his brain. Yes, it _looses_ its brain occasionally. That is all.
chillericed 13y ago
Does anybody know why they didn't go sidekiq instead of resque?
- Jake232 13y ago
  Sidekiq wasn't around when they made resque.
room271 13y ago
I'm actually surprised at how short the list is. Presumably they use a lot more open-source projects than this?!
hemancuso 13y ago
Curious to know if proxymachine is still used, anyone know?
lucidquiet 13y ago
What about any DB? MySQL, or Postgres? Is it all Elastic Search?
- petepete 13y ago
  They use MySQL and the MySQL Project use Bazaar.
ethomson 13y ago
GitHub has also posted some of the projects that power GitHub for Windows: https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-windows https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-... and GitHub for Mac: https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-mac https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-...

164 points by waffle_ss 13y ago

neya 13y ago

Is there a reason why Github runs on it's own fork of Rails (I believe it's 2.3 or something), when they could just upgrade to Rails 4, from the official Master (which is faster and probably more stable AND most importantly with most security bugs fixed)?? Pardon me if I sound stupid, I'm just trying to understand why.

davidw 13y ago
The Rails 2.3 -> 3 upgrade is not exactly a walk in the park.
chc 13y ago
"Just upgrade to Rails 4." Five words, months and months of hair loss. There is a lot less radical change and a lot more focus on compatibility in Rails nowadays, and yet upgrading a substantial app to a new version of Rails is still a shaky proposition. For a lot of companies, the gigantic leap from 2.3 to 3 was more trouble than just paying somebody to maintain 2.3.
freedrull 13y ago
I believe they have upgraded to 3, thanks to @tmm1. It was mentioned in some talk, probably by Zach Holman.
- bnferguson 13y ago
  Significant work has been done by tmm1, rsanheim and a host of others, but it's not complete yet. Basically, the work is on-going and pretty amazing to watch!
kneath 13y ago
From my perspective, there have been a few different reasons why we haven't just upgraded: 1. Time spent upgrading Rails is time not spent building awesome things for our customers to use. We're extremely customer focused. 2. Performance is also a huge concern of ours. Over the past few years we've driven response times down dramatically. Upgrading Rails not only presents a slower framework (Rails 3/4 is not faster than 2.3), but a different architecture — changing where our performance chokes are. We'd have to do a ton of work on this front just to keep performance steady. Again, time spent here is time not spent making our existing infrastructure faster. 3. We've spent the past three years working on upgrading the stack. It's not so black and white — we have many of the benefits of newer rails without needing to upgrade everything. There has been a lot of effort here. In my own personal experience, upgrading frameworks is generally the fastest way to create bugs and work on the opposite of customer impact. I don't think you should feel like you have to be on the bleeding edge.
- wasd 13y ago
  As per number 2, are these GH specific or can they be sent upstream?
  - bnferguson 13y ago
    Not completely sure all the blockers but I think it may have to do with 2.3 being in maintenance mode (may even be unsupported at this point). Either way, being able to contribute back is definitely one of the things people are looking forward to about being on a current version. I've heard a few mention they'd love to be able to send any Rails performance bits upstream much like we see with the Ruby patches lately.
- neya 13y ago
  Thank you, that was informative :)

aantix 13y ago

Is it true that Github runs a custom Rails fork? And if so, which version is it forked from?

dham 13y ago
I can't find the post right now but I believe it's 2.3 with 3.x features put in, like asset pipeline.
tenderlove 13y ago
Yes it's true (AFAIK). It's a fork of 2.3, and you can find it here: https://github.com/github/rails https://github.com/github/rails

binarymax 13y ago

Missing something? :) https://github.com/git/git https://github.com/git/git

nightpool 13y ago
Actually, they use https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2 https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2 to create and manage Git repos. "libgit2 is a portable, pure C implementation of the Git core methods" (You can find that listed on the page)
- ethomson 13y ago
  Since libgit2 is not yet feature complete when compared to git core, I'm quite certain that they use both. (For example, libgit2 did not have merge until relatively recently, so they could not be using it to power pull requests.)
- peff 13y ago
  No, GitHub primarily uses regular git on the backend. It powers all fetches and pushes, diffs, and most of the history traversals. Some functionality is provided by libgit2, and it's ever-increasing because libgit2/Rugged is often more natural to call from ruby code (though a lot of it is replacing old Grit code, not git itself). libgit2 powers much of GitHub's desktop apps, with regular git mostly filling in any functionality still missing from libgit2.
- bch 13y ago
  Last I heard (couple months ago) it was used for a couple or three pieces of functionality only. Based on my experience with it (master incredibly stale, not recommended, and the recommended "development" brittle and buggy), that's not surprising at all...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - ethomson 13y ago
    I'm sorry if you've found the development branch to be buggy - we strive for a high-level of stability there, so we'd be very pleased if you would open issues there.

jweir 13y ago

No mention of Resque. Is Github still using it, or moved on? https://github.com/resque/resque/tree/1-x-stable https://github.com/resque/resque/tree/1-x-stable [edit -- thanks, I see that it is on the list now.]

rsanheim 13y ago
We still use resque.

the1 13y ago

where is https://github.com/sexist/julie https://github.com/sexist/julie ?

AndyKelley 13y ago

What could I do to get my JavaScript game engine[1] listed on the JavaScript game engines showcase page[2]? Or my music player server[3] on the music showcase[4]? [1]: https://github.com/andrewrk/chem https://github.com/andrewrk/chem [2]: https://github.com/showcases/javascript-game-engines https://github.com/showcases/javascript-game-engines [3]: https://github.com/andrewrk/groovebasin https://github.com/andrewrk/groovebasin [4]: https://github.com/showcases/music https://github.com/showcases/music

dpick 13y ago

Is there a special library used to power the comments editor? I'd love to have a library that let me do drag and drop images into markdown.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

umrashrf 13y ago

thanks for letting me know what should I learn beforehand to work at Github!

seanconaty 13y ago

So happy PJAX made the list. With all the JS frameworks out there I think this is the least appreciated.

mcmire 13y ago

Wonder if they manually curate these lists or if they initially populated them with some sort of machine learning?

bnferguson 13y ago
These are manually curated at the moment. Though the selections may be inspired by machines. Or rabbits. Hard to say.

igravious 13y ago

Hey Github peeps! Hubot apparently occasionally looses his brain. Yes, it _looses_ its brain occasionally. That is all.

chillericed 13y ago

Does anybody know why they didn't go sidekiq instead of resque?

Jake232 13y ago
Sidekiq wasn't around when they made resque.

room271 13y ago

I'm actually surprised at how short the list is. Presumably they use a lot more open-source projects than this?!

hemancuso 13y ago

Curious to know if proxymachine is still used, anyone know?

lucidquiet 13y ago

What about any DB? MySQL, or Postgres? Is it all Elastic Search?

petepete 13y ago
They use MySQL and the MySQL Project use Bazaar.

ethomson 13y ago

GitHub has also posted some of the projects that power GitHub for Windows: https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-windows https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-... and GitHub for Mac: https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-mac https://github.com/showcases/projects-that-power-github-for-...