GitHub Zen API

https://api.github.com/zen

by bencevans • 13 years ago

97 52 13 years ago

api.github.com

cliveowen• 13 years ago

"Responsive is better than fast."

I don't agree with this.

easytiger• 13 years ago

When you think about it, it doesn't even make sense.

Spoygg• 13 years ago

I don't.

btown• 13 years ago

I assume it's not a reference to responsive ("self-resizing") HTML, but rather things like user input lag (a common problem in apps.) Better to have a zero-lag async calculation than a nominally faster but UI-blocking synchronous calculation or request.

derefr• 13 years ago

I think it's actually meant to encourage putting up things like spinners, page transitions, etc. Make the user feel that something is happening, and they won't feel slowed down.

lnanek2• 13 years ago

I agree with it very much. When I'm zipping files on Linux and my system grinds to a halt due to hard drive contention, I don't want faster zip times, I just want the damn thing to be responsive while it zips in the background.

opiumden• 13 years ago

If you're running zip from the command line, try setting the priority with 'nice' when you run it. That should allow you to continue using your system while zip crunches away in the background. If you forget to set the priority level at runtime, use 'renice' to set the priority level of a running process.

arscan• 13 years ago

Not that there is any right answer here (that's the whole point), but my interpretation is less a technical one than the ones suggested so far.

Being fast gets you to far away places, but being responsive gets you places where you want to be.

taf2• 13 years ago

it just says "design for failure" ?

[edit] okay i get it refreshing gives another message etc. etc.

nekgrim• 13 years ago

"Non-blocking is better than blocking."

You don't say.

technoweenie2• 13 years ago

FWIW this is not a statement about programming (node.js vs ruby or whatever)

webignition• 13 years ago

How can you be sure? Just curious, not saying you're wrong.

VeejayRampay• 13 years ago

I wonder who would naturally equate blocking to Ruby specifically. Or non-blocking to Node.js for that matter.

Is Node.js VS Ruby even a thing?

leddt• 13 years ago

Is this used anywhere at all, or is it just an easter egg ?

bryogenic• 13 years ago

Great fun with cowsay

  $ curl https://api.github.com/zen -s | cowsay

   _____________________
  < Speak like a human. >
   --------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Touche• 13 years ago

Awesome, aliasing this as cowzen.

gizzlon2• 13 years ago

Have you seen that it comes with other examples?

     ls /usr/share/cowsay | xargs -n1 -I{} cowsay -f {} foo | less

Some of them are.. well..

"Cow Operation"? WTF

seiji3• 13 years ago

Best ones: vomit cow and Kosh.

Kosh works exceptionally well with tiny zen sayings.

    ______________________________________ 
   < Mind your words, they are important. >
    -------------------------------------- 
       \
        \
         \
     ___       _____     ___
    /   \     /    /|   /   \
   |     |   /    / |  |     |
   |     |  /____/  |  |     |     
   |     |  |    |  |  |     |
   |     |  | {} | /   |     |
   |     |  |____|/    |     |
   |     |    |==|     |     |
   |      \___________/      |
   |                         |
   |                         |

cobychapple• 13 years ago

See also:

  $ curl https://api.github.com/octocat

           MMM.           .MMM
           MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
           MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM      _____________________
          MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM    |                     |
         MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM   | Speak like a human. |
        MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM   |_   _________________|
        MMMM::- -:::::::- -::MMMM    |/
         MM~:~   ~:::::~   ~:~MM
    .. MMMMM::. .:::+:::. .::MMMMM ..
          .MM::::: ._. :::::MM.
             MMMM;:::::;MMMM
      -MM        MMMMMMM
      ^  M+     MMMMMMMMM
          MMMMMMM MM MM MM
               MM MM MM MM
               MM MM MM MM
            .~~MM~MM~MM~MM~~.
         ~~~~MM:~MM~~~MM~:MM~~~~
        ~~~~~~==~==~~~==~==~~~~~~
         ~~~~~~==~==~==~==~~~~~~
             :~==~==~==~==~~

You can also append `?s="your message here"` to use it to say something other than one of the GitHub Zen messages.

Smirnoff• 13 years ago

What are these things called? And how do I make one and append into my code?

jlgaddis4• 13 years ago

Great fun with cowsay

... and ponysay: http://i.imgur.com/Df09hpV.png

talles2• 13 years ago

Great idea, gonna put it in my bashrc (:

gizzlon2• 13 years ago

Surprisingly profound: Anything added dilutes everything else

nfzufxjlidp• 13 years ago

Of course this is false if you add more of the same. ;)

IceyEC• 13 years ago

except that it still DOES dilute everything except the thing that was added

samatman• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier's_principle

RobAley• 13 years ago

The comments below demonstrate that, while cute, virtually all of the statements it comes up with are entirely subjective, quite superficial, totally ambiguous, and useless for most things.

Great conversation starter though!

odiroot• 13 years ago

Check response headers. Pretty strict rate limiting.

packetbeats• 13 years ago

After curl-ing for a while in a loop, and sort -u:

  Anything added dilutes everything else.
  Approachable is better than simple.
  Avoid administrative distraction.
  Design for failure.
  Encourage flow.
  Favor focus over features.
  Half measures are as bad as nothing at all.
  It's not fully shipped until it's fast.
  Keep it logically awesome.
  Mind your words, they are important.
  Non-blocking is better than blocking.
  Practicality beats purity.
  Responsive is better than fast.
  Speak like a human.

peterjmag• 13 years ago

Got the same list after about 100 authenticated requests: https://gist.github.com/peterjmag/6551440

jlgaddis4• 13 years ago

You could turn these into a data file for fortune[0].

I currently use the "Cluefire and Damnation"[1] fortunes and pipe it into ponysay[2] at login.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_%28Unix%29

[1] http://www.cluefire.net/

[2] https://github.com/erkin/ponysay/

andmarios• 13 years ago

I had made something like that with fortune and php many-many years ago.

I wonder if GitHub has a static list of quotes (like fortune does) or they generate them dynamically.

brbcoding• 13 years ago

Never realized there was an emojis api too... https://api.github.com/emojis

Void_• 13 years ago

If you wanna read short messages from which you won't benefit in any way, might as well try:

http://whatthecommit.com

ismaelc• 13 years ago

https://www.mashape.com/community/github-zen#!documentation

jlgaddis4• 13 years ago

    $ grep bofh .bash_aliases 
    alias bofh="nc bofh.jeffballard.us 666 | tail -n 1 | sed -e 's/Your excuse is: //'"

    $ bofh
    The air conditioning water supply pipe ruptured over the machine room

burgeralarm• 13 years ago

This reminds me of a small project I tossed together:

http://git-fortune.bclune.org

It grabs a random commit message from a github repo and displays it. By default, it pulls from a repo containing the original debian fortunes as commit messages. But you can point it to other repos like this:

http://git-fortune.bclune.org/twbs/bootstrap

Inspired by What the Commit? and /usr/bin/fortune.

talles2• 13 years ago

Is there anything related to the zen of python?

I got "practicality beats purity", that is in it ("Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules. Although practicality beats purity.").

arjunbajaj• 13 years ago

$ npm install github-zens -g

$ zen

A Node Module which prints the zens (offline list). https://github.com/arjunbajaj/github-zens

GitHub Zen API

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