
Show HN: Should I Gem - fuzzygroup
http://www.shouldigem.com/
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fuzzygroup
Here's the quick description that I would have added if there was both url and
text in the initial submission:

Ever wondered if it's worth using a gem? ShouldIGem will generate a report
card for a gem of your choice. Gems are graded on things like documentation,
freshness, support and popularity. ShouldIGem's goal is to help you narrow
down which gems you should use in your next project.

Note - The term "gem" is more branding at this point (I am a Rubyist) but it
works for any project on Github - C, Node, Python, Rust, etc.

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brudgers
An interesting idea. I'm wondering how freshness relates to stability and
which is more valuable.

~~~
fuzzygroup
Hi there, Creator here. That's an excellent question and one that I am trying
to address but, honestly, I don't have a full answer for yet. I tend to be
biased in terms of freshness since things change so rapidly these days but
there are certainly open source projects such as QMail or Bind which certainly
aren't fresh but are absolutely stellar.

Food for thought. Thank you.

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safek
It's a nice idea. I'd appreciate a tool that lets me enter a library and
understand its merits along various dimensions. The problem with this tool is
that it doesn't give me that understanding, as I have no idea what the grades
mean.

The "enter Github repo, get information" part is there. Now you just have to
improve the quality of that information. I think the tipping point past which
you will suddenly get an influx of users is when someone can use your website
as a tool to actually make informed decisions that they couldn't have without
it.

Also, it's a tool for developers, so drop the Bootstrap! Either make it
resemble the output of a Unix utility — sparse, clean, and compact — or go all
the way and make it as gorgeous as Stripe's docs.

~~~
fuzzygroup
Hi Safek, the author here. Thank you for the input. I'm going to think very
hard about what you're saying.

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timvdalen
What are the criteria here? I put in a gem and got an F in Engineering
Practices, while I can't really find how the gem deviates from gem best
practices.

~~~
fuzzygroup
Hi Tim,

I dug into it and its an issue with the difference in engineering practices on
larger gem projects versus smaller. Perfectly acceptable engineering
approaches in the small don't work well on larger projects and right now there
is a bias towards larger projects mostly because that's how I implemented it.
Let me give it some thought. Thank you very much for the feedback.

~~~
timvdalen
Cool, good luck taking this project further :)

