
Pullup, the site you join via pull request - eluos
http://pullup.io
======
EpicEng

      "We figured pretty much everybody knows JavaScript"
    

Haha, that's funny. I guess all of the world's software runs on the web and is
written in Silicon Valley. Oh wait, what's that you say, some programmers
actually work on all those weird machines like satellites, assembly lines,
medical devices, power plants, and even my car?! People actually write new
operating systems, compilers, web servers, load balancers, and device
drivers?! No way! Why don't they just make a web app for that stuff?

Yeesh. I realize that you can't please everyone, but some people chose to live
in their own little worlds.

~~~
matt2000
Hey there, one of the creators of the site here. When we put this line on the
site we never expected it to be this controversial! It isn't meant to be a
universal truth, it's just in terms of a "website you join via pull request."
So, perhaps better written as: "Almost everybody who works on a website knows
JavaScript."

The satellite that you join via pull request can be written in whatever you
want :)

~~~
EpicEng

      "Almost everybody who works on a website knows JavaScript."
    

That I can agree with.

~~~
shangxiao
I would prefer to have that statement qualified with "knows of" ;)

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zheng
From the about page

> We figured pretty much everybody knows JavaScript

Even with the implied "everybody" being "everybody that would be interested in
joining our site", this is a poor assumption. Not everyone is a ninja-rockstar
web developer. In fact, some of the best content on HN comes from people who
most likely don't know JS. I get the idea for the site, but the description
seems very naive.

(FWIW, I do know JS)

~~~
derefr
What language would you recommend, if you wanted to make something accessible
for, say, teenagers who haven't even taken the perfunctory "Introduction to
Control Structures In Blub" course yet? Javascript seems like a good guess for
"language you might pick up just from everyday computer use." (Another two
being, I think, Windows batch files, and Excel macros.)

~~~
EpicEng
I can't imagine how anyone would pick up bits of js just from everyday
computer use. How many people even now the the "view source" button in their
browser even exists? Excel and batch files / shell scripts I could see though.

------
derefr
You know, it just occurred to me: if instead of pull _requests_ , they just
accepted all pushes... that'd sort of make this the programmatic equivalent of
a wiki, wouldn't it? A site anyone could edit, in a more literal sense: not
just the content, but the features.

Oddly enough, you wouldn't necessarily require people to use the command-line
for this, but nor would you need to build any editing UI; instead, the site
could just, say, provide a context menu that contains links to the GitHub
code-editor view of all the source files, _and_ content files, that were used
to render that particular element.

If you really wanted to do this, to be practical, you'd need a pretty good
continuous integration server to block the deployed build from failing, but
for the codebase _itself_ , I think it'd be a fun experiment to just let
people do whatever they like.

\---

... _or_ , on a different tangent, you could have something like a CI server
that evaluates and accepts/rejects pull requests based on arbitrary criteria.
This'd basically be a black box (not part of the editable codebase) serving
the same purpose that the site administration currently does.

This process could have _very_ specific rules, like, say, that not only does
every test have to pass, but that the commit can't delete any code _from_ a
test. So features can be added to a codebase through this black box, but not
removed.

Attaching such a black-box-evaluator + automatic CI deployment process to the
public web would almost be like throwing a genetic algorithm at your codebase:
it would "evolve" roughly according to the constraints of the algorithm, even
though people are doing the work.

~~~
teraflop
> not only does every test have to pass, but that the commit can't delete any
> code from a test.

Good idea, but this is easily gamed by e.g. adding a test that starts failing
on a certain date. I've thought about this before, and it's really hard to
come up with mechanisms for a system to incorporate untrusted modifications
without totally collapsing.

It would be hilarious to design a program that accepts Bitcoin payments, and
automatically accepts merge requests from the highest bidder.

------
nthitz
The top link on Pullup is a link to this HN post with the title: "Pullup HN
Update post, everyone upvote/comment"...

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codegeek
"We figured pretty much everybody knows JavaScript"

Honest question and not trolling. Can I send a pull request to update this
text to "We figured JavaScript is very popular these days....."

EDIT: I just did it anyway. Feel free to accept/reject

~~~
dllthomas
Perhaps "and the changes sufficiently small"?

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betawolf33
Interesting idea.

One thing that this would be good for is almost by default members get
experience working with the technologies the site is running -- they learn to
use Github, deploy node.js, etc. It gives them a working technology base for
their own projects.

One problem I foresee is that without a clear discussion about where the site
is going, it could quickly become rife with lots of poorly-interacting
features. Another is that delays in merging might well turn away valuable
members.

Still, interesting project.

~~~
matt2000
Getting experience with the technology involved has definitely been a side
effect. For example, I'm a whole bunch better at managing lots of pull
requests in git versus a few days ago. It's been a really fun ride so far, no
idea where it'll end up but excited to see what happens.

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unfunco
Wouldn't it be easy to join by simply coming up with a username and adding it
to
[https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/blob/master/config/userl...](https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/blob/master/config/userlist.js)
– and then submitting a pull request for the merge?

~~~
davidddavidson
Presumably you need to make some other code change/improvement as well with
the pull request or else it will be rejected.

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spindritf
Previously
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7193353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7193353)

~~~
githulhu
It looks like they've had some success with their idea - the site looks quite
a bit nicer and has had several new features added since then.

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1qaz2wsx3edc
Yea, they still have a workflow problem that was never solved:
[https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/5](https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/5)

On the bright-side at least the project is MIT. Good ol' MIT.

~~~
neoveller
Already solved same-day:
[https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/11](https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/pull/11)

But never implemented / merged. Surprised the powers-that-be are resisting the
most elegant solution. Then again, I came up with it, so I remain bitter and
biased :)

~~~
tg3
I think the logic is that the current way isn't a big problem now that there
is a standard of how you add your username to the file, and has allowed for
some flexibility on the membership.

The old saying, "don't fix it if it ain't broke."

~~~
neoveller
Have you read the issue? The problem is that the current way things are done
requires manual merge requests because of merge conflicts resulting from the
updated userlist array. The github api method is 1:1 with the requirements of
joining the community and leaves no room for human error (unless the person in
charge of pull requests does not standardize their own process for automatic
merges).

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
The current solution is humorous:
[https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/blob/master/config/userl...](https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup/blob/master/config/userlist.js#L2)

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drcode
> We wondered what a site would be like where every user had contributed some
> code. It should mean no spam..

HAHAHAHA, good luck with that.

(But still, a nice idea for a site)

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seshakiran
why cloning hackernews?

~~~
Spiritus
Why not?

