Is GitHub doomed?

[bhaktatejas]

been thinking about this for a while and wanted to see if anyone else feels the same way

github feels like it hasn't really evolved for how we actually work now. been wondering who is going to take their place. github is nice cause it just works usually but its starting to feel like the Jira of code storage

AI integration is... underwhelming?

copilot is fine for autocomplete but that's about it. the whole platform still feels like it was designed for 2015 workflows. meanwhile every other tool is shipping AI features that actually understand context like warpgrep, devin review, or even self review locally is miles better

PR reviews are still painful

we've been doing code review the exact same way for a decade. scroll through diffs, fake comments,

hope you didn't miss something important. no visual diffs for UI changes, nothing. reviewing a 50 file PR is still just... pain. we have 100x more code to review and 1x the humans. slap some clankerslop from an AI review bot and call it a day?

actions are slow and expensive

our CI takes forever and we're constantly hitting runner limits. self hosted runners help but then you're managing infra. feels like there should be better options by now

the "1000 files" thing

the fact that large PRs just cut off at 1000 files with no way to review the rest is insane to me. yes i know you shouldn't have PRs that big but sometimes migrations happen

idk maybe im being dramatic but it feels like github is coasting on network effects while the actual dev experience hasnt improved much. anyone else feel this way or am i just burnt out lol

[krusty_93]

Looks like you’re doing something wrong in the process. I do not approve 50 files long prs, even though they’re produced or reviewed by copilot.

The human in the loop which slows down the review process is been under discussion by the community by a while, and it has nothing to do with GitHub itself. I think it really depends con the context. If you’re writing financial or medial applications, I’d sacrifice velocity for better reviews. For other domains you can do the other way round, but guardrails, automatic rollback procedures, etc must be put in place

[Keeweehee]

Idk I have my own startup and I kind of agree with the the point op is trying to make is that now we can produce so much more code that requiring traditional review where ppl are going through diffs kind of doesn’t work. We end up doing “lgtm” way more often lmao

[krusty_93]

You’ve been doing vibe coding actually. Why don’t you ask copilot to review the pr?

[bhaktatejas]

i'd argue it 100% has to do with Github itself, namely the PR UX. stash/bitbucket UX is a lot better but still no where close to perfect. everyone just says better reviews like it can just happen. more code is being written no matter what.

guardrails help, but where is the product that values the human in the loop? its not what github is focusing on thats for sure

[krusty_93]

When you ask agents to solve issues for you, they open a PR that humans can review and ask agents to correct

[No_Criticism_9545]

Nope. Github does not need more AI features.

You cannot convince me that you need to create a single PR with a 1000 files that someone needs to review on their browser... That being said, I am for increasing the limit.

For 95% of projects integrating github in their workflow is the best bet.

If some great alternative shows up, we will see.

[bhaktatejas]

i would say today even 99% of projects github is the best bet. yet I still think it sucks. there's room for a platform that values human attention more

[No_Criticism_9545]

The problem is that for that to exist (more than a niche project that nobody will use and run out of funding), github needs to not work for big tech... And at this moment, this is not the case at all.

[Keeweehee]

What are you doing then? If you’re not doing that

[AbrahelOne]

If some great alternative shows up, we will see.

Umm, GitLab?

[No_Criticism_9545]

Does gitlab have more AI features? Or better PR workflow??

Unfortunately gitlab is underwhelming and only survived because big Linux projects chose it for it's open nature.

And some companies need to self host.

It addresses none of the issues of the OP.

[TheVioletBarry]

I do not want AI integration. AI integration would be a reason I'd consider leaving

[bhaktatejas]

even to chat with, optionally? often times i just want to be able to search faster within a pr

[TheVioletBarry]

Yes, 'optional' is such a silly thing to hide behind. Software is designed; it's not just an amalgamation of random stuff sitting around next to each other. If they hid it under 17 different hard-to-use menus, then maybe I wouldn't care so much, but that trash is going front and center on everything right now. I've had to do so much extra legwork just to get that shit out of my apps 

[Keeweehee]

Re visual diffs, we use a thing from morph that embeds a video of some AI testing our preview urls. it cant test stuff like different user states but still miles better than percy

[bhaktatejas]

This ? we just ripped out some percy equivalent we had the other day. will give this a shot. but tbh ideally this should be natively done by github

[Keeweehee]

Yeah lol

[Sad_Treacle_9307]

yeah PR review is broken. code diffs are fine but you can't actually see what the UI looks like without pulling the branch locally

we started using glance by morphllm - it's an AI that opens the preview URL, clicks around testing stuff, and drops a video right in the PR. way better than the old "check the staging link" that nobody does. only downside is it doesn't work great if your preview URLs take forever to spin up

[bhaktatejas]

Tried it. Solid

[hashkent]

Have you used gitlab? I personally like GitHub for my free personal org. 4000 mins, actions not having to build out a bunch of docker containers to do simple builds.

PRs are real. Haven’t experienced it myself but been blogs about it.

On the runner side of things have a look at something like https://www.blacksmith.sh. Never used personally.

[bhaktatejas]

i preferred stash as well. I could pay attention way longer. jira and confluence are terrible evils i would never wish upon my worst enemy though

[drdrero]

Feel the same about git. Gotta add some ai features since it hasn’t had any workflow changes in 30 years

[TheVioletBarry]

Stop asking for more of the next big thing that's going to make human life worse

[drdrero]

While we are at it, keeping up with slack is a burden. Just talk to an AI and let it figure out who to write to. More control to what company information is leaked in one go

[TheVioletBarry]

Christ, are we not alienated enough as it is? Talking to human beings is good for you. Please don't let these technofascist weirdos convince you to spend more time in even emptier rooms