[HN Gopher] Show HN: Watermelon - open-source VSC ext. to docume...
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       Show HN: Watermelon - open-source VSC ext. to document code and
       view Git blame
        
       Hey there HN! We're a pair of devs looking to get feedback for our
       open-source project.  We're remote engineers who have contracted
       for many clients overseas. There's a problem that all codebases
       share: Onboarding devs to a new codebase is hard no matter what.
       We're also open-source engineers and learned about the techniques
       used in OSS to tackle the problem. Please give us your feedback.
       Homepage: https://watermelon.tools/  Repo:
       https://github.com/watermelontools/wm-extension  Install:
       https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Watermel...
        
       Author : baristaGeek
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2022-05-13 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | Loic wrote:
       | nicorojas9, alan_arguello, jgarzonebrath and oarojas were all
       | accounts which are between 2 year and 90 day old without any
       | comments.
       | 
       | Suddenly they decided to comment for the first time on this
       | specific submission.
       | 
       | And all within one hour.
       | 
       | And all to basically write the same thing.
       | 
       | The Watermelon authors are lucky or maybe it is Friday the 13th.
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Wow this Sherlock Holmes-level research.
         | 
         | Our close friends did notice we launched. Lol.
        
           | melissalobos wrote:
           | > Wow this Sherlock Holmes-level research.
           | 
           | It isn't very hard to click on the usernames after you see
           | some suspicious messaging from similar accounts.
        
         | alan_arguello wrote:
         | Always happy to verify my identity Loic.
         | 
         | I saw that Watermelon was on HN and I did made a first comment,
         | because I have been following the project and I like to support
         | other founders who happen to be my friends.
         | 
         | And indeed, they are "lucky" to have people that like the team
         | and project. Hope that it is the same case with you and people
         | that you know :).
        
       | sebmellen wrote:
       | Hey Esteban, it's Sebastian. Huge congrats on your HackerNews
       | launch!!!
       | 
       | I had the pleasure of working with Esteban (aka baristaGeek) at
       | Cerebrum. Great guy. There's a saying that the best employees go
       | on to be founders, and I can definitely see that in what
       | Watermelon is becoming. Very exciting!
       | 
       | And yes! The code onboarding problem is always there. Watermelon
       | providing that historical context is huge.
       | 
       | P.S. I just happened to find this at the bottom of the homepage.
       | I had no idea Esteban would be posting here, I just browse HN a
       | lot.
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Ty Sebastian! Yeah, Cerebrum was an awesome school.
         | 
         | Hope we're adding value with our historical context tool.
         | Always glad to listen to your feedback.
        
       | nicorojas9 wrote:
       | Hey, congrats on the open source approach! I do have a question
       | on your strategy though. How do you get valuable feedback from
       | users? What incentive does your users have in order to
       | communicate with you back and forth trying to build a better
       | product?
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Ty! Open source is a very important part of our philosophy.
         | 
         | 1. We track which GitHub usernames and repos that use
         | Watermelon, it's the only thing we track. This allows us to go
         | to people and ask them for more detailed feedback. We also get
         | feedback from stargazers and forkers. Because we're open
         | source, people also leave GH issues.
         | 
         | 2. The incentive is something very basic: They wanna see a
         | better version of this out there in the world.
        
           | no_circuit wrote:
           | According to the repo it is more than just username and repo,
           | the local user account and email address is also tracked [1].
           | I'd argue that you shouldn't be recording email since that is
           | PII. And repo name and repo owner since the names could be
           | considered trade secrets within organizations. Recording the
           | local user account could be considered sensitive information
           | since it could aid hacking the organization. Finally I don't
           | think you should be recording the GitHub username as well
           | since usage patterns could be analyzed to determine the
           | timezone of the user, which is also considered sensitive
           | personal information in some large corporations that track
           | user behavior data.
           | 
           | Sorry, but I don't think you should request feedback from
           | users without their explicit permission. Isn't there a
           | feedback mechanism built into VSCode already, or make and
           | affordance for one in your plugin UI? Maybe at best generate
           | a random install ID that can be reset for analytics and
           | session tracking? VSCode has guidelines for this, see [2].
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/watermelontools/wm-
           | extension/blob/c389125...
           | 
           | [2] https://code.visualstudio.com/api/extension-
           | guides/telemetry...
        
             | estebandalelr wrote:
             | Hey! This is great insight, honestly wasn't aware and
             | you're right. Any chance of sending a PR for this? Would
             | you be interested on talking about employment with us (open
             | to part time)? We are a fully remote company.
        
       | alan_arguello wrote:
       | Amazing concept! I have been following the process and I'm really
       | excited to see what you guys accomplish. Congrats!
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Ty Alan! It's great to be surrounded by smart technical people
         | like you.
        
       | a-dub wrote:
       | super cool! have long been interested in tooling for making code
       | archaeology easier!
       | 
       | any plans for building extensions for various issue/work tracking
       | systems, wikis, email archives, etc? i've longed for
       | comprehensive views across tickets, pull requests, bug reports
       | and wikis for all relevant knowledge for a given effort in past.
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Yes! We're exploring Jira, and Notion integrations mostly.
         | We're discarding Slack for the moment because of the technical
         | feasibility, but would be something we look further down the
         | road.
         | 
         | What's your opinion about the create docs direction we're
         | exploring to complement your Indiana Jones coding? (Love your
         | "code archeology" term).
        
           | a-dub wrote:
           | that is less interesting to me personally as that's often
           | handled locally. (most sites with many projects will have
           | some sort of locally customized project boilerplate or
           | template to start with).
           | 
           | i'm more interested in tooling that gives as much context as
           | possible for why something is the way it is. code ages like a
           | novel would as passed through the telephone game. the more
           | context that is readily available for each generation of
           | changes, the more consistent the design remains in the long
           | run.
           | 
           | also, it's incredibly handy when in emergency breakfix
           | situations.
        
             | baristaGeek wrote:
             | Ty very much! We'll keep this in mind.
        
         | sebmellen wrote:
         | It looks like integration with ticketing systems is on the
         | roadmap https://github.com/orgs/watermelontools/projects/1.
        
       | igomeza wrote:
       | Used it some weeks ago to understand a package in the kubernetes
       | codebase. Its great for getting insights on an unfamiliar project
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Thanks! If you have any suggestions for us please open up an
         | issue on our repo.
        
       | alexrecouso wrote:
       | I've been following this project for so long, super cool to see
       | you guys here!
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Ty! Always looking to learn about new ways to add value to you
        
       | revenga99 wrote:
       | Curious why it is named watermelon.
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | It's the happiest fruit and has emoji :)
        
       | miguelmichelson wrote:
       | I've been following Esteban's project recently, I like the
       | product very much it's really handy to give context on what we do
       | on daily basis (coding in my case :D). Build in the open is the
       | way to go, best of lucks to the watermelon team!
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Ty! Yeah we're an open company (open source, open roadmap, open
         | salaries) and it has worked great.
        
       | oarojas wrote:
       | Love the open-source approach. Congrats! Great product
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Ty! This has been an important pillar for us since day 1. We
         | believe a lot in the open source ethos, its transparency, and
         | its collaborativeness.
        
       | estebandalelr wrote:
       | Hey! Esteban, the CTO of watermelon here. Feel free to ask any
       | questions, open to answering them :)
        
         | sebmellen wrote:
         | So many Estebans...
        
       | jgarzonebrath wrote:
       | This concept is very cool. Interesting approach to visualize git
       | blame and the team behind looks outstanding. Congrats guys,
       | downloaded.
        
         | baristaGeek wrote:
         | Ty very much! We're glad we're adding value.
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-13 23:01 UTC)