Let's Make GitHub Better, Together

http://shurcool.github.io/bettertogether/

by DanielRibeiro • 13 years ago

103 41 13 years ago

shurcool.github.io

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

love the positive attitude, especially since we all tend to be a bit negative these days.

limpangel2• 13 years ago

Let's make our own pages more accessible by using a video format that can be played on platforms other than Apple. :|

trumbitta2• 13 years ago

The videos can't be played on my iPad 2, too.

lloeki2• 13 years ago

Can't either on Firefox/OSX.

xSwag• 13 years ago

Videos are working fine for me.

Chromium + Debian

zalew• 13 years ago

but don't work in firefox on debian

nolok• 13 years ago

Doesn't work on chrome windows, or firefox windows.

koko775• 13 years ago

Works for me on both.

babby• 13 years ago

Windows, FF.

Wow. Looking at my sibling comments, this is some full spectrum incompatibility. Abandon ship on these videos!

devcpp• 13 years ago

Windows, FF as well. It needs the divx plugin but then works flawlessly.

Granted, needing additional plugins is kind of bad. But I don't know an easy way to embed very short videos so it's as good a solution as any.

FreeFull• 13 years ago

Doesn't work in Firefox for me but does work in Midori

itafroma2• 13 years ago

The website is using h.264 at ~3Mbps in a QuickTime movie container in <video> elements. It'll work for anyone with the following conditions met:

- Using a browser that supports the QuickTime container format (i.e., has the QuickTime or compatible plugin installed)

- Using a browser that supports the <video> element with the h.264 codec (not Firefox).

- Using a device that can decode 3Mbps h.264 video (not iOS devices).

This is more for the sibling comments, but on Hacker News, I'd expect people to take a minute to check why something is or isn't working for them on a page instead of just commenting what browser/OS combo they're using.

limpangel2• 13 years ago

Oh, but I checked why it is not working as soon as I saw "Video format or MIME type is not supported.". Just to see that the extension of the video file is mov and of course it would not play in my FF-Win7.

As for your points:

- installing QuickTime is not an option (in my opinion it's a piece of bloatware crap that should be retired)

- why should I not use Firefox? just because it chose to support only open video formats

- last time I checked iOS devices sold way more than Macs and I bet a lot of people check out HN using them

Problem: the page is more or less only addressed to people using MacBooks and Windows/Chrome !?! (maybe should include that in the HN link to the article)

Solution: it only takes 10-15 minutes to convert the videos to ogv or webm and add new source tags to the code for fallback thus making the page accessible to the rest of the world

P.S. I did not mean for my first comment to sound like a snarky remark (the blood rush to the brain took over for a moment). I should have included more details about the nature of the problem. Cheers.

FiloSottile• 13 years ago

Nice finds and good attitude! But why this instead of a mail to support@github.com?

They have always been really fast and responsive in my experience.

ultimoo• 13 years ago

I like all three suggestions.

But why is this the #1 story on the hn frontpage?

I love github and use it quite a bit, but why nitpick over every tiny github issue/feature on the hn frontpage?

lloeki2• 13 years ago

Because of the positive attitude.

There's too much venting on the front page. We're not all whiners that keep on ranting about how this and that is crap (hyperbole, but there's truth in that).

We're supposed to be the builders of the future, so instead of grinding axes, let's go and chop some wood.

And let's talk about trains that arrive on time for once.

PommeDeTerre• 13 years ago

It seems more like a politically-correct attitude to me, rather than a positive one.

Instead of just stating the problems and some possible solutions, it wraps it up with faux sentiment about "loving" GitHub, and making it sound like GitHub is a poor soul suffering from some medical condition.

GitHub is merely a tool, hopefully just one among many in any given developer's toolbox. It seems kind of weird to me to think of it as anything but a tool, and especially weird to tread so lightly or carefully when discussing its flaws.

TazeTSchnitzel2• 13 years ago

It's a shame we can't go to https://github.com/github/github/issues to report these things.

binderbizingdos• 13 years ago

yeah, it's kinda weird that they "promote" open source using closed source SW. at least they could have issues. I think to make the github code open source would have been something they should have done years ago. now gitlab has rewritten almost the whole functionality from scratch.

if you look at what happens with gitlab, just imagine how much it would advance github itself it they would have a repo for which people could open PRs

polarix• 13 years ago

Sweet sweet irony

TazeTSchnitzel2• 13 years ago

I wasn't actually complaining about it being closed-source. I just wish I could use GitHub to make, erm, issues about GitHub.

wise_young_man• 13 years ago

If that were to happen, why would anyone buy Github enterprise or even pay for a pro account? Their business model relies on closed source for their proprietary code.

pearkes• 13 years ago

It appears this repository[1] was forked from a repo that also had a bunch of suggestions:

http://letsmake.github.io/bettertogether/

This original repo[2] was made by someone who appears to now work at GitHub.[3]

[1] https://github.com/shurcool/bettertogether

[2] https://github.com/letsmake/bettertogether

[3] https://github.com/gjtorikian

timdorr• 13 years ago

As of just a few months ago, too: https://github.com/blog/1372-garen-torikian-is-a-githubber

DanielRibeiro2• 13 years ago

I've done my contributions to making GitHub better too:

- Syntax highlight when diffing: https://github.com/danielribeiro/github-diff-highlight

- Better personalized search: https://github.com/danielribeiro/Octogrep

mh-• 13 years ago

I have a number of dotjs scripts to enhance github as well; have you run into any issues since they turned on CSP? I haven't spent any time on it yet but some of them broke.

gjtorikian• 13 years ago

Indeed, I created the original "letsmake/bettertogether" site and posted it here on HN around December 2012. It went to the front page, and I was hired by GitHub in 2013.

A few Hubbers did see the site, but that is, of course, half the story, and I can honestly say that that wasn't the reason I got hired. I did also send in a resume weeks earlier, which did also get seen. It was the right place, the right time, and the right skills.

I would suspect--and this is just my opinion--that anyone attempting to create a site to highlight suggestions won't impress anyone. It worked once, and you'll need your own way to stand out. Uniqueness is what's valued here, not number of HN points or comments.

I'm going to mark my repo as Private to discourage copycats. I apologize for that.

BinaryBullet• 13 years ago

I remember seeing your original post in December. One of the comments/suggestions was about the Ace editor (and not being able to choose a theme). I ended up making this on that day:

https://github.com/skratchdot/github-editor-theme.user.js

I have a few other user scripts that I like to use as well when browsing Github:

https://github.com/skratchdot/github-repo-filter-info.user.j...

https://github.com/skratchdot/github-repo-counts.user.js/

https://github.com/skratchdot/github-code-search.user.js/

https://github.com/skratchdot/github-get-missing-description...

lnanek2• 13 years ago

Is this client he is submitting bug reports for open source? I browsed through https://github.com/github/ really quick, but didn't see it.

If not, maybe he should be using some open source Git GUI if he wants to work together. Although I don't know of one offhand. I just use the command line myself.

skyebook• 13 years ago

Their desktop clients aren't open source. I personally haven't found any open-source git GUIs that work as well as GitHub for Mac or SourceTree (both of which are closed-source and now have Windows equivalents)

jonsterling• 13 years ago

Oh boy, another “found some bugs, (by the way, hire me)” post.

laurent123456• 13 years ago

There are good points being made, but I think the form is not the best. Whenever I see videos, I often want to just close the tab since I don't want to sit through (potentially) minutes of looking at clumsy clicking around until the point is being made. In the first point, two screenshots (one with the sidebar, and one with the broken view) would have been enough. For the second, the text below the video, one short line, is enough. So unless you're are a good filmmaker, just stick to writing or screenshots, it's short and more effective.

pron• 13 years ago

I would add a feature called "announcements" which would allow a project make infrequent announcements that would show up on the timeline of all the project's "starrers".

csense2• 13 years ago

Have "I'm subscribing to this project's announcements" be a different item than starring. But when they turn the feature on, make this checked for everyone's starred repos. And when a user stars a new repo, have that automatically subscribe the user to the project's announcements.

The reasoning? If you star a project, you're usually interested in the project's announcements, but not always. In particular, some projects might have high-volume announcements. That's perfectly okay, if the particular project culture wants them; but users who view high-volume announcements as annoyances or even borderline spam can still turn that particular project's announcements off, and still be able to have it starred.

human_error• 13 years ago

I feel like GitHub needs something similar to Google Groups for projects. I think that would come in handy.

Let's Make GitHub Better, Together

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