[HN Gopher] GitHub-Next
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       GitHub-Next
        
       Author : rahulpandita
       Score  : 153 points
       Date   : 2022-08-26 12:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (githubnext.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (githubnext.com)
        
       | vi2837 wrote:
       | Fun name, and they do what everyone do constantly: "exploring the
       | future of technology and software beyond.." :)
        
       | vemv wrote:
       | > GitHub Next investigates the future of software development.
       | 
       | Yesterday I tried to use Datadog's Github integration for
       | stacktraces and it asked me for "access Github on my behalf".
       | 
       | It's been the same since the beginning of Github - they leave
       | integrators with no better options, and users with an ambiguous
       | UI dialog / docs that downplay the scope being granted.
       | 
       | Sooooo maybe fix your own stuff before making such grandiose
       | claims?
        
         | saurik wrote:
         | Why wouldn't this be done over git? It seems almost ridiculous
         | for this to be a GitHub-specific API and authentication
         | mechanism instead of merely authorizing an SSH key from Datadog
         | (which would then allow whatever this service is doing with the
         | source code to also work for any other source code hosting
         | solution).
        
           | bastardoperator wrote:
           | Metadata lives in the API, not the git repo. I would argue a
           | github app with rotating hourly tokens which datadog seems to
           | support is better than a users ssh key or an ssh key with
           | access to many repos.
        
           | hobofan wrote:
           | Because DataDog's GitHub integration does in addition to git
           | data also take GitHub data into account to provide a better
           | user experience. E.g. for giving "this action broke this
           | thing" insights giving you a clickable link to a GitHub PR
           | instead of just providing you with a git SHA hash.
           | 
           | They also provide a direct git integration, which as far as I
           | can tell just is a reduced version of the GitHub one, with a
           | featureset that seems reasonable if they only have the pure
           | git data.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | blondin wrote:
       | honestly want a non-vscode plugin for copilot.
        
         | PufPufPuf wrote:
         | There are plugins for VSCode, VS, everything JetBrains and
         | Neovim. What else could you want?
        
         | speedgoose wrote:
         | It exists for Neovim or jetbrains.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | saos wrote:
       | A nice diverse team they have there /s
        
       | bern4444 wrote:
       | Regarding visualization of codebases, something I've wanted for a
       | long time is a graph of function calls across an entire project.
       | 
       | I want to know all the callers and callees of every function.
       | This shouldn't be too hard, we already have find references via
       | LSP.
       | 
       | Turning this into a graph would make it significantly easier to
       | manage the entry and exit points of a code base and inform
       | architecture decisions, refactors, type checking, hot paths etc.
        
         | 0x09 wrote:
         | Doxygen has the ability to generate these with its
         | CALL_GRAPH/CALLER_GRAPH config, at least from each function
         | individually. It can look quite funny when the depth isn't
         | limited: https://i.imgur.com/3LMV71N.png
        
         | avg_dev wrote:
         | That's a cool idea. I don't know much about ASTs or anything
         | but I know you are right about LSP being able to find most
         | everything I am searching for in the mostly statically typed
         | languages I've worked with. Would be fun to try that out over a
         | weekend or three.
        
         | cheald wrote:
         | It's coming at it from the wrong end, but I do a lot of this
         | with kcachegrind, particularly for tracking down hot paths in
         | Ruby, which is so dynamic that static analysis of nigh
         | impossible. At least for the purposes of checking hot paths,
         | it's quite useful.
        
         | madelyn wrote:
         | I ended up doing this for our python codebases at work.
         | 
         | The AST module was super handy as you'd expect. The script
         | would optionally take some filters to reduce the size of the
         | generated graph, and then it sent all the info to Graphiz (it
         | emitted DOT, too, so it could be version controlled!!)
         | 
         | It was extremely fun, highly recommended.
        
         | kelsolaar wrote:
         | I have been looking for something like that for a while and
         | your reply made me look again. I just came across Codemap
         | (haven't tried): https://codemap.app/
        
           | bern4444 wrote:
           | Thanks for sharing! This looks pretty close to what I had in
           | mind.
        
       | eixiepia wrote:
       | If the team needs some data on bloated, slow software and bad
       | practices, they can create an account on gitlab.com and look
       | around for a few minutes.
        
       | keriati1 wrote:
       | Visualising a Codebase: This sounds very interesting, it looks
       | like similar graphics as what CodeScene creates.
       | 
       | The dependency between the modules seems like a nice addition to
       | me. I don't think CodeScene has that one. Can't wait to try this
       | on our bigger projects.
       | 
       | I never found a really good way to visualize large codebases and
       | the dependencies between the modules, does somebody have
       | something for this?
        
       | ilovecaching wrote:
       | I really don't like the two trends Github is pushing for:
       | 
       | 1. Code editor is full of telemetry and costs money, only
       | accessible over the internet.
       | 
       | 2. Code regressing into lots of boilerplate and automatically
       | copied stack overflow answers by copilot, programmers using less
       | critical thinking skills.
       | 
       | I don't trust Microsoft either.
        
       | haskellandchill wrote:
       | Simon Peyton Jones and John Hughes, not bad.
        
       | throwoutway wrote:
       | Did GitHub ever respond to the concerns about CoPilot?
       | Specifically whether they trained it on private repos or GPL?
        
         | NoraCodes wrote:
         | It was trained on all public repos, and only public repos. They
         | did not pay attention to licensing.
        
           | Thev00d00 wrote:
           | Wow, that's crazy. Do we have something official that says as
           | much?
        
             | NoraCodes wrote:
             | I asked, and that's what their spokesperson said via email.
        
             | jacquesm wrote:
             | It's infuriating, when you are large enough you can get
             | away with anything when it comes to copyright violations
             | but I remember the crazy pushback on things like format and
             | time shifting against private individuals.
        
               | avg_dev wrote:
               | What is format and time shifting? I am wondering if you
               | mean like code formatting and reordering history, but I'm
               | not really sure. Thanks.
        
               | jrmg wrote:
               | Format shifting: ripping a CD to play on your MP3 player,
               | or cassette tape in the car.
               | 
               | Time shifting: recording TV on VHS to play later.
        
               | avg_dev wrote:
               | Thanks, and oh wow. Hard to believe that was ever
               | considered problematic. I guess times change.
        
               | voxic11 wrote:
               | Those things were ultimately ruled as fair use though
               | which is what Microsoft is claiming here as well.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | Those things _were_ fair use, what Microsoft is doing is
               | copyright violation pure and simple.
        
               | temp-dude-87844 wrote:
               | This should absolutely be litigated to stop the blatant
               | laundering of copyright under the guise of fair use.
               | 
               | Copilot's API is surfacing snippets of work without
               | licensing information attached alongside. It can be shown
               | in discovery that Copilot does access the origin work.
               | 
               | The sooner this is slapped down, the sooner we can avoid
               | addressing the even more troubling question that exists
               | today: is someone who used Copilot to throw together a
               | bunch of code infringing copyright of works where those
               | portions originate?
               | 
               | This is a complex problem with no satisfying
               | conclusions... how could one be violating copyright if
               | they never accessed the 'copied' work to copy? Copyrights
               | aren't patents. Infringement requires copying.
               | 
               | Using Copilot launders the user's awareness of the origin
               | works, yet making the Copilot users liable for widespread
               | "accidental" copying would be troubling.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | It's not complex at all: if you use Copilot to generate
               | code for you you are engaging in copyright infringement.
               | 
               | That you got the code from and entity that stole it
               | somewhere else doesn't really matter. Generative models
               | should respect copyright for their sources, and using a
               | generative model to create new works that you intend to
               | claim copyright on is stupid: someone may well show up
               | one day with ironclad proof that you used their code
               | without permission.
        
               | bastardoperator wrote:
               | Except every attorney that has taken a look disagrees
               | with you. So it is complex and unless you have any
               | standing or new data I think it's safe to dismiss your
               | entire argument.
               | 
               | https://decoded.legal/blog/2021/06/github-copilot-
               | initial-th...
               | 
               | https://fossa.com/blog/analyzing-legal-implications-
               | github-c...
               | 
               | https://felixreda.eu/2021/07/github-copilot-is-not-
               | infringin...
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | Lawyers don't judge cases, judges do.
               | 
               | Until then all you have is opinions, mine is pretty
               | straightforward: if the generative model can be made to
               | work without first training it on other people's code
               | then it isn't copyright infringement, if not then it is
               | transforming one set of works into another.
               | 
               | The only thing that _might_ let GitHub off the hook is
               | their terms of service, but that might mean mass exodus
               | from GitHub because if they interpret you using GitHub to
               | host your code as a blanket permission to do with that
               | code whatever they want then that 's clearly not the
               | original intent of the service.
               | 
               | If Microsoft buying GitHub claims that gave them a
               | blanket license to do as they please with the
               | contributions of millions of FOSS contributors then they
               | are still just as bad as they were in the past.
               | 
               | Almost every GitHub repository comes with a license file,
               | even GitHub should have to abide by that license,
               | otherwise the whole thing is pointless.
        
               | bastardoperator wrote:
               | Unless you have specialized training in copyright law,
               | your opinion is unfortunately invalid when compared to
               | actual experts in the field. You're making assertions
               | that you clearly cannot substantiate coupled with the
               | fact that we're not seeing an influx of litigants.
               | Personally, I'm yet to see any news of even a single
               | litigant challenging copilot. Also, the outcome of cases
               | in the US are in many cases decided by a jury, not a
               | judge.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | I've fielded a couple of copyright lawsuits and won them,
               | obviously the lawyers of the defendants thought they had
               | an excellent case. I may not be a lawyer but I do know a
               | thing or two about copyright law and as far as I'm
               | concerned if you claim that you have created something
               | because you took someone else's copyrighted content and
               | pushed it through a machine of sorts that does not create
               | an original work. There is _plenty_ of settled caselaw
               | around this. So that much we can establish off the bat.
               | Which means if you use this to create your own
               | copyrighted work you may have a problem anyway. Whether
               | or not it is infringing or not is largely a matter of the
               | length of the segment produced and whether or not it
               | matches the original in some non-trivial way. The
               | mechanism in the middle doesn 't really matter.
               | 
               | If Microsoft/GitHub want to field the argument that they
               | own the rights to all of the code uploaded to GitHub then
               | I'm perfectly fine with that, the only problem I see with
               | that defense is that it will likely kill GitHub
               | overnight.
               | 
               | As for the jury argument: that's fine, but juries aren't
               | lawyers either. I'm not sure if that should weigh as a
               | positive or a negative for Microsoft.
               | 
               | Finally, regardless of the legality: there is such a
               | thing as ethics and in my book you don't appropriate a
               | large body of work from a whole community without so much
               | as a by-your-leave. There have been other threads on HN
               | regarding this and it is interesting to see the various
               | opinions, even so if Copilot is challenged legally than
               | I'll be cheering on the party bringing the suit.
        
               | tpmoney wrote:
               | A reminder that copyright infringement vs fair use is in
               | part dependent on the amount of the copyrighted material
               | that's being used, the nature of that use and the
               | transformativeness of the infringing work. Just because
               | co-pilot suggests code snippets that can be found in a
               | copyrighted work does not mean that the resulting
               | produced product is in fact an infringement of that
               | copyright.
               | 
               | Also a reminder that outside the copilot debate, the
               | online rights movement has largely been pushing for
               | scraping, deep linking and transforming scrapped data to
               | not be considered copyright infringement, regardless of
               | any TOS on the site being scraped.
               | 
               | To me, co pilot is a exactly that, a scraper that has
               | scraped public websites and is now presenting me the
               | scraped data in an alternative and often transformed
               | form. It's my responsibility as a developer to ensure
               | that my released product complies with applicable
               | copyright law, but copilot and the use thereof is not in
               | and of itself copyright infringement.
               | 
               | That a tool can be used to create infringing work or
               | infringe on copyright in general is no more a valid
               | argument against co pilot than it is against CD burners,
               | de-drm tools, vcrs, kodi or plex, scanners or any number
               | of day to day items that have the ability to infringe
               | copyright if the user uses it for that purpose.
        
               | Nanana909 wrote:
               | If Copilot reads copyrighted code to learn, and it's
               | copyright violation...
               | 
               | Does the same apply to a human? Do we now define
               | copyright violation differently for computers? I don't
               | know the perfect answer here. But I'm not so sure we
               | should have standards that change depending on if a
               | program is doing it or a human is doing it. Perhaps a bad
               | standard to begin with.
               | 
               | I do tend to learn towards thinking ,,company uses
               | publicly available, open source code in product" is
               | somewhat of a nothing-burger though.
        
               | voxic11 wrote:
               | Maybe, but then every large AI project is also committing
               | copyright violations because as Microsoft notes this is
               | currently a common practice in the AI research community.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | Other parties doing is no excuse imo.
               | 
               | Microsoft has been _super_ litigious in the past when it
               | came to copyright violation starting all the way back
               | with Bill Gates ' letter in Byte magazine about those
               | pesky pirates. To see them do this makes pirating MS
               | software fair game from here on. They could have asked
               | nicely, instead they just took.
        
               | searchableguy wrote:
               | > Other parties doing is no excuse imo
               | 
               | It is. Laws are adapted based on widespread technological
               | capabilities and progress.
               | 
               | As an example, if it is easy to create real voice or
               | signature using AI models - they should no longer be
               | considered effective evidence for contractual reason
               | instead of enforcing that it is illegal to forge it. That
               | is not going to work.
               | 
               | Past shouldn't dictate what we allow tomorrow.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | Sorry, but that's not how the law works. Try that excuse
               | the next time you're stopped for speeding and see how
               | well it works.
        
               | searchableguy wrote:
               | Your example is not good. Speeding is not a technical
               | innovation that require any fundamental change. It is
               | enforced in automated fashion and it is beneficial for
               | the safety of public at large if reasonably implemented.
               | 
               | All laws are made in interest of someone.
               | 
               | Does the copyright apply to AI models since they are out
               | of scope and weren't widespread when it came into force?
               | 
               | Does the proposed benefit in the original law apply in
               | practice?
               | 
               | Are they more beneficial than the progress allowed by AI
               | models who use them as training data?
               | 
               | Is the copyright law practically enforceable on output
               | generated by AI models?
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | Copyright law is what it is today. Like it or not doesn't
               | really matter. And yes, copyright law is practically
               | enforceable, regardless of how copyright is broken.
               | That's what the Berne Convention is all about.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention
               | 
               | Copyright is what FOSS depends on. For Microsoft to shit
               | all over GitHub contributors rights is despicable.
        
             | voxic11 wrote:
             | You can read between the lines
             | 
             | > GitHub Copilot is trained on billions of lines of public
             | code.
             | 
             | > In one instance, GitHub Copilot suggested starting an
             | empty file with something it had even seen more than a
             | whopping 700,000 different times during training-that was
             | the GNU General Public License.
             | 
             | https://github.blog/2021-06-30-github-copilot-research-
             | recit...
             | 
             | This indicates that they are training it on github's public
             | repositories and at the very least including 700,000 GPL
             | licensed projects or code files. Since the GPL is one of
             | the most "restrictive" open source licenses one can assume
             | they are not caring about the licenses much.
        
         | mysore wrote:
         | copilot is just a prototype. imagine in 10-20 years, software
         | engineers as we know it will be obsolete.
        
           | edgyquant wrote:
           | Yea because in the future everyone will write code and things
           | like Copilot get us there. You're probably an engineer who
           | likes making way more than average. So you're biased
        
           | bodge5000 wrote:
           | I remember when this was said about visual-programming. That
           | didn't exactly pan out
        
           | reaperducer wrote:
           | _imagine in 10-20 years, software engineers as we know it
           | will be obsolete._
           | 
           | I've heard people saying this since the mid-70's.
           | 
           | I lump it into the same trash bin with flying cars and
           | orbiting space hotels, and "90 minutes from New York to Paris
           | -- undersea by rail." Things envisioned by artists that will
           | never happen in my lifetime, or yours.
        
           | mikepurvis wrote:
           | Lots of other languages, tools, libraries, and frameworks
           | have already made SWEs orders of magnitude more productive
           | over the course of the last 40+ years. I don't think there's
           | any indication of the field shrinking or slowing down as a
           | result of that though.
        
           | joshthecynic wrote:
        
           | cush wrote:
        
         | blackoil wrote:
         | That's such a vague and novel area, that I don't think lawyers
         | will recommend/allow commenting on it unless required by court
         | of law.
         | 
         | There is no precedent on if a computer reading your code or
         | looking at the image is fair-use or not.
        
           | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
           | why not train it on copyright material also? whats the prima-
           | facie reason for not doing so? i mean if you are doing "all
           | public repos", why not everything else?
        
             | ziml77 wrote:
             | They did train it on copyrighted work. The GPL is a license
             | for copyrighted work. If it wasn't copyrighted, a license
             | would be useless.
             | 
             | The code being covered by copyright and the code being
             | publicly accessible are two different things.
        
               | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
               | you know what i mean... i am talking about training it on
               | windows OS code and adobe photoshop source code and other
               | "proprietary software" code
        
               | tpmoney wrote:
               | Because scraping a public website is different from
               | breaking into adobes private source control servers?
        
               | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
               | there is public DB of windows code out there, if "cant"
               | is the word then let users submit the injest code and let
               | it train on it. if "wont" is the word then who gave them
               | the permission?
        
             | blackoil wrote:
             | Officially, Github does not have access to those repos. It
             | manages them doesn't mean all team have access to them.
        
       | FemmeAndroid wrote:
       | Is this essentially a rebranding of what was GitHub OCTO (Office
       | of the CTO, I believe?)
        
         | TAForObvReasons wrote:
         | Yes. https://github.com/githubocto
         | 
         | > We moved to https://github.com/githubnext!
         | 
         | https://github.com/githubocto/flat still using old name
        
         | idan wrote:
         | Yup! When Jason departed, we couldn't be an OCTO without a CTO
         | soooo rebrand! but the mission remains the same. Prototype
         | things to figure out what should be!
        
       | owlbynight wrote:
       | I read the whole page and still can't tell what this is. Was
       | someone up against a deadline to get this up?
        
       | jayroh wrote:
       | If anyone on the team at GitHub who built this site sees this --
       | 
       | Heads up, that page has no `<title>` tag so the browser tab is
       | `githubnext.com/`. That is a _VERY_ minor nit, but still an SEO
       | ding (you're github, that doesn't matter much), and a rough edge
       | that could be buffed out.
       | 
       | Bonus points for adding a favicon too. :)
        
         | stby wrote:
         | Favicon is there, it just happens to be light grey. I guess
         | someone only tested this one on a browser in dark mode.
        
         | geoffeg wrote:
         | I noticed that twitter.com also has no <title> tag, the title
         | gets set once the JS loads. Kinda surprising to me that such a
         | popular site like Twitter doesn't have such a basic HTML tag.
        
         | gnull wrote:
         | It's also horribly bloated. Just scrolling on my modern Android
         | smartphone makes it lag and drop to like 5 FPS.
        
         | debugnik wrote:
         | > That is a _VERY_ minor nit
         | 
         | Well, the title is precisely the only mandatory element in a
         | valid HTML5 document, even if forgetting it seems harmless.
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | Long time ago I read/skimmed the specification, but I think
           | the DOCTYPE preamble is the only _required_ element in a
           | HTML5 document. The specification allows you to omit <head/>
           | if it's empty, and if that's allowed, then it should be
           | allowed to not having any <title/> elements as well.
           | 
           | Edit with details from https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-
           | html5-20141028/document-metad...
           | 
           | > Note: The title element is a required child in most
           | situations, but when a higher-level protocol provides title
           | information, e.g. in the Subject line of an e-mail when HTML
           | is used as an e-mail authoring format, the title element can
           | be omitted.
           | 
           | From https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/REC-html5-20141028/document-
           | metad...
           | 
           | > If it's reasonable for the Document to have no title, then
           | the title element is probably not required. See the head
           | element's content model for a description of when the element
           | is required.
           | 
           | So strictly speaking, if it's meant to be used as a
           | traditional web page, you should really have it (obviously),
           | but it's not strictly required.
        
             | debugnik wrote:
             | From the head element section mentioned:
             | 
             | > If the document is an iframe srcdoc document or if title
             | information is available from a higher-level protocol: Zero
             | or more elements of metadata content, of which no more than
             | one is a title element [...].
             | 
             | > Otherwise: One or more elements of metadata content, of
             | which exactly one is a title element [...].
             | 
             | So it is required, not just suggested, for a web page, but
             | not for all kinds of html documents; TIL. The parser still
             | tries to parse head contents before body contents even if
             | you omit the head tags, so a doctype followed by title is
             | the shortest valid full page.
             | 
             | I didn't mention the doctype because I believe it isn't
             | strictly speaking an element, just a preamble, but you're
             | right, it's required as well.
        
               | chrismorgan wrote:
               | > _I didn 't mention the doctype because I believe it
               | isn't strictly speaking an element, just a preamble, but
               | you're right, it's required as well. _
               | 
               | Funny thing, when I read "the only mandatory element in a
               | valid HTML5 document", I interpreted "element" in its
               | generic English sense (piece, thing) rather than its HTML
               | sense (node of type element, as distinct from
               | text/comment/doctype/other-types-only-found-in-XML-syntax
               | nodes).
        
               | debugnik wrote:
               | True, I guess I would too if I were a native English
               | speaker. Even when the words are almost identical in my
               | language, I read them as programming jargon before plain
               | English.
        
             | chrismorgan wrote:
             | It's not that you're allowed to omit the head element
             | (you're not, and you can't), but that its start and end
             | tags are optional. Same with the html and body elements.
             | (These remarks apply to HTML syntax only; in XML syntax,
             | which is certainly still a thing, you can (if you care not
             | for validity) omit whatever elements you choose to, only
             | needing _some_ root element.)
             | 
             | As far as sources are concerned, the HTML spec is
             | maintained by WHATWG, not W3C. The relevant citations start
             | at https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/semantics.html#do
             | cume....
             | 
             | The normative reference on the necessity of <title> is in
             | the content model for the head element:
             | 
             | > _If the document is an `iframe srcdoc` document or if
             | title information is available from a higher-level
             | protocol: Zero or more elements of metadata content, of
             | which no more than one is a `title` element and no more
             | than one is a `base` element._
             | 
             | > _Otherwise: One or more elements of metadata content, of
             | which exactly one is a `title` element and no more than one
             | is a `base` element._
             | 
             | For the rest, you're correct: the DOCTYPE is the only
             | always-mandatory thing in a valid HTML document.
        
               | tingletech wrote:
               | convo was about HTML 5 specifically (the W3C version).
               | I've never heard HTML WHATWG called HTML 5.
        
               | JimDabell wrote:
               | > I've never heard HTML WHATWG called HTML 5.
               | 
               | Directly from the specification:
               | 
               | > 1.2 Is this HTML5?
               | 
               | > In short: Yes.
               | 
               | -- https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/introduction.ht
               | ml#is-...?
        
               | Aeolun wrote:
               | > It's not that you're allowed to omit the head element
               | (you're not, and you can't), but that its start and end
               | tags are optional.
               | 
               | That's like calling a cheese sandwich without any cheese
               | a cheese sandwich.
        
               | ectopod wrote:
               | It's not a sandwich recipe. The bread doesn't matter. The
               | cheese does.
        
               | tingletech wrote:
               | I think they are saying HTML implies the <head> for you -
               | the <title> is still required.
        
         | justaj wrote:
         | Not only that, but it appears their DNS settings are a bit
         | funky as well:                 $ dig githubnext.com
         | ; <<>> DiG 9.11.3-1ubuntu1.17-Ubuntu <<>> githubnext.com
         | ;; global options: +cmd       ;; Got answer:       ;;
         | ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 29398
         | ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0,
         | ADDITIONAL: 1              ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:       ; EDNS:
         | version: 0, flags:; udp: 65494       ;; QUESTION SECTION:
         | ;githubnext.com.                        IN      A
         | ;; Query time: 1458 msec       ;; SERVER:
         | 127.0.0.53#53(127.0.0.53)       ;; WHEN: Fri Aug 26 17:20:13
         | CEST 2022       ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 43
        
         | idan wrote:
         | Hey! Thanks for the report, we're on it :D
        
         | mooktakim wrote:
         | This is minor compared to all the new websites that use div's
         | for link and button tags.
        
       | user3939382 wrote:
       | If the web implementation of git could be as
       | federated/decentralized/open as git is so that GitHub didn't
       | exist, that would be my ideal "GitHub-Next". Please eliminate
       | yourselves.
        
       | carapace wrote:
       | Will they be innovating in ways that we get to use for free? Or
       | are they creating new ways to get in-between the coder and the
       | machine? E.g. Copilot is a paid subscription.
       | 
       | By enabling increased complexity (via Language Server Protocol,
       | Copilot, and even GitHub itself) devs get locked-in to the MS
       | ecosystem. It reminds me of Braess's paradox ("adding one or more
       | roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow
       | through it" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox ).
       | 
       | Increasing our ability to generate (but not comprehend) complex
       | systems is also _intrinsically_ dangerous (beyond the  "rent
       | seeking" of MS) because complexity itself is a kind of cost or
       | overhead. This is not to say that the more complex system cannot
       | result in efficiency gains that outweigh the cost to maintain
       | that complexity. (If that were true there would be no
       | multicellular life, eh?) It means complexity should be carefully
       | justified in terms of economic/engineering considerations.
        
       | hbn wrote:
       | Could they use the blurb of text at the top to give me like... a
       | noun to describe what this is? It just says some vagueness about
       | the future and investigating and exploring.
       | 
       | Is it a conference? A team? An initiative? How does it work?
       | 
       | Whatever this is supposed to be selling me on, they're doing a
       | terrible job because I can't figure out what it is!
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ffhhj wrote:
         | It's just a rebranding of GitHub OCTO:
         | 
         | https://github.com/githubocto
        
         | nvrspyx wrote:
         | It seems to be a research team within GitHub based on the
         | blurb, projects, and team.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | tuukkah wrote:
         | From Twitter bio: " _GitHub Next: a team exploring the future
         | of technology and software beyond the adjacent-possible._ "
         | https://twitter.com/githubnext
         | 
         | Their team consists of engineers and researchers.
        
         | cush wrote:
         | Did they add this in the last 40 mins?
         | 
         | I'm seeing a pretty good description:
         | 
         | " GitHub Next investigates the future of software development.
         | We explore things beyond the adjacent possible. Tools and
         | technologies that will change our craft. New approaches to
         | building healthy, productive software engineering teams. "
        
           | cmeacham98 wrote:
           | That explains what it does (somewhat vaguely), but not what
           | Github Next is and who makes it up. Is it a team at GitHub
           | that employees work on full time? It it some kind of
           | initiative where GitHub employees spend part of their time
           | working on it? Is it a community effort? Am I able to join
           | in?
        
             | FinalBriefing wrote:
             | I think you're thinking too hard about it. It's just a list
             | of R&D projects that might be interesting to some people.
             | 
             | Or maybe they just updated the site in the last hour. It's
             | got a list of team members and events and stuff.
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | It is? It reads like meaningless marketingspeak to me. It
           | doesn't actually say what GitHub-Next is.
           | 
           | I've read the whole page and I'm not sure what it is. I
           | suspect it's a think tank, but I'm not certain.
        
         | buscoquadnary wrote:
         | It's a sexy name by some middle manager somewhere, or some
         | executive3 that got a good idea while taking a morning duce, to
         | come up with an exciting new project that will juice their
         | resume and hopefully get them promoted before it comes to the
         | front that they do nothing and their objectives are entirely
         | fluff.
         | 
         | It's an old trick first called out in The Dilbert Principle
         | that you get promoted by being associated with sexy sounding
         | projects, the best case is a sexy sounding project that has
         | vague objectives.
         | 
         | Given the blurb above it sounds like there is very little
         | substance to this and lots of style. Expect it to be sunset or
         | fade into obscurity in 3-5 years.
         | 
         | EDIT: For context their stated mission is > GitHub Next
         | investigates the future of software development. We explore
         | things beyond the adjacent possible. Tools and technologies
         | that will change our craft. New approaches to building healthy,
         | productive software engineering teams.
         | 
         | Notice the lack of anything that will actually be produced, key
         | words that you are dealing with BS is "explore", "approaches",
         | and "change our craft" without any details on what any of that
         | means. If they were producing or doing something they'd say
         | that. As is it's meaningless marketing drivel that could
         | translate better as "We've made up a fake job to play with cool
         | tech, write ill-informed meaningless blog posts about what the
         | next cool thing everyone should do is. We're also light on
         | technical skills so we are going to focus on teams and projects
         | not actual tech"
         | 
         | I don't begrudge them the fact they weaseled their way into
         | this job good for them, but I don't expect much, and If I am
         | wrong and these are actually super smart talented individuals
         | that finally got the freedom to make something happen then I
         | apologize for my dismissiveness. That being said when companies
         | get acquired by MS they don't tend to be known for their
         | innovation and ground breaking research going forward.
        
         | idan wrote:
         | Hi there! That's good feedback, and we updated the thing to
         | make it clearer. Thank you!
        
       | brockrockman wrote:
       | Does githubnext.com read as a phishing-adjacent third party to
       | anyone else?
       | 
       | Why not deploy as next.github.com subdomain?
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | This happens all the time because setting up an entirely new
         | domain yourself is way less work than asking the internal IT
         | team to set up a subdomain for you. If the GitHub IT team is
         | reading this then yes, that means you failed.
        
           | tomschlick wrote:
           | I'd imagine it's less about setup complexity and more about
           | reducing the attack surface of the main domain where any
           | number of mistakes on the subdomain could expose a
           | vulnerability for the main domain as well.
        
         | oogali wrote:
         | Likely for a security-driven reason: it's primarily a marketing
         | site that shouldn't have access to the .github.com cookie
         | space.
        
           | idan wrote:
           | Bingo
        
         | idan wrote:
         | Used to be that way! But actually for security reasons, it was
         | better for us to operate out of a separate domain. The
         | github.com domain is very locked down for good reason.
         | 
         | Also, various boring realities around SSL termination made
         | deployment difficult in a github.com domain. This was the
         | expedient solution. Not phishing!
        
       | sizediterable wrote:
       | How about making Github-Current actually have a good code review
       | UX?
        
         | idan wrote:
         | We're thinking about review experiences! We're developers too,
         | and we're keenly interested in how to make code more
         | reviewable, how to help developers _make_ code more reviewable,
         | and alternative interfaces to the notion of changesets.
        
         | edgyquant wrote:
         | GitHub's code review UX is the reason a lot of us use it (or
         | were sold on it at least.)
        
       | boredumb wrote:
       | co-pilot used to generate react code with a GUI visualization
       | tool. Boy am I excited for the amount of money people will be
       | paying for ongoing maintenance for this brave new world.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-08-26 23:01 UTC)