
GitLab 11.7 Shipped with Releases, Multi-Level Child Epics, and NPM Registry - jfreax
https://about.gitlab.com/2019/01/22/gitlab-11-7-released/
======
baaym
I've been enjoying GitLab at my last three employers now, with the CI
integration being the most liberating feature compared to the traditional CI
providers. Especially the Docker CI runner gives you a great integration test
environment, and I'm impatiently waiting for this MR [0] that will allow
dependant containers to also talk to each other. It's the last missing piece
for my ideal CI setup.

[0] [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
runner/merge_requests/1...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-
runner/merge_requests/1041)

~~~
boleary-gl
GitLab product manager for Verify (CI) here.

Thanks for bringing this up I hadn't seen your contribution! I think this is a
great idea. I know the technical team has been overwhelmed with community
contributions as of late - which is a good problem to have but one that we're
still solving. I'm going to try and shepherd this one along myself. If you
want you can reach out to me on Twitter @olearycrew or my email is boleary
[at] gitlab.

~~~
baaym
Great to hear you're looking into it! I do have to clarify that I'm not the
owner of the MR though, not meaning to take credit of @krotscheck's work.

~~~
boleary-gl
Ah sorry, my bad - I may have misread as well. Either way thanks for bringing
it to my attention as I think this is a change that could make some other
iterations "possible."

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11235813213455
Gitlab API is amazingly simple and flexible, can be used efficiently from the
terminal to list CI jobs, your issues, edit them,.. Gitlab CI is top-notch,
things like CI_COMMIT_BEFORE_SHA environment variable for monorepos is a
killer feature, now npm registry, .. Gitlab wiki for documentations

At work we are using Atlassian products, they would be so efficiently replaced
by just Gitlab

~~~
salzig
Sadly not in situations where you need overview for more then one project.
Viewing of mergerequest for all projects you have access to was disabled cause
of performance problems.

~~~
sytse
Is there an issue for that? On the current version of GitLab
[https://gitlab.com/dashboard/merge_requests?assignee_usernam...](https://gitlab.com/dashboard/merge_requests?assignee_username=sytses)
loads in half a second
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfj1svopkexl6vb/Screenshot%202019-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfj1svopkexl6vb/Screenshot%202019-01-22%2011.52.52.png?dl=0)
and I have 1700 merge requests.

Maybe it was a regression in an old version?

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nextos
Tangentially related, but GitLab has developed surprisingly good (albeit still
incomplete) support for org-mode and many other markup languages. So it's
extremely easy to publish say a wiki built with org and they render it
beautifully.

I've found this invaluable for working solo or in group projects.

~~~
merlincorey
I definitely agree, because I use org-mode and gitlab, personally.

However, they are just using the same ruby package that Github uses to render
the org-mode to HTML... unfortunately it is far from perfect.

Still, it's MUCH better than the go version in Gogs, so there's that.

~~~
nextos
I know, but on Gitlab you can additionally run an Emacs container to use org
to export to HTML.

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mevile
We've started using Gitlab where I work and it's so much better than GitHub.
The built in CI and the activity view are features I just can't live without
anymore. I also prefer Gitlab's merge requests to Github's PR system, and the
UI overall is just tons better. The other thing is that GHE is an afterthought
always behind github.com and with Gitlab, that's the main product, although
gitlab.com is what we're using and it's gold. The only thing I miss is
contribution stats which you have to pay extra for, and I hope we do.

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graphememes
I think Gitlab is awesome. However, their current homepage hides their actual
site (the repositories) and makes it hard as a developer to actually get
started compared to Github.

Looking through (browsing repositories) there is almost NO adoption to gitlab.

~~~
allover
Well it seems like a very different model to Github.

I don't know the figures, but the teams I encounter using Gitlab are self-
hosting, you aren't going to be able to browse their (private) repos.

~~~
graphememes
Depends on what we are comparing.

Gitlab Cloud v Github Cloud. Github cloud is easier to grok, and get started
versus gitlab, adoption on github is very visible, and immediate from first
landing.

Gitlab On Premise v Github Enterprise. Gitlab wins in offering (open source,
and complete ci/cd). However, I would argue that the marketing is much
stronger with Github. Github has a streamlined message which you can consume
easily and then once you're in you get deeper into the meaning of.

This is what I am referring to. Model or not, it's something that is a barrier
to entry.

~~~
emilycook
(GitLab employee) What would you say GitHub does that makes it easier to get
started on/adopt? I don't disagree, barriers to entry are just subjective so
I'd like to hear your take

~~~
graphememes
Homepage Messaging:

Github:

1\. Straight to the point. For developers. Host code, work alongside millions
of developers or your team. 2\. Registration form right next to message.
Immediate start. No need to think about much else. Let's get started. 3\. Let
me check their features (just in case) keep scrolling 4\. Oh wow okay, woah
another register form right here easy.

Gitlab:

1\. Message makes me think. "A full DevOps tool~chain~.*" Why the asterisk?
I'm already distracted. 2\. Okay, I can manage projects, sourcecode
management, CI/CD, great. 3\. Get started for free... 4\. Immediately see "try
x for y days"... thinking "so is this paid?" 5\. Look down and see I don't
need to do that.

I have to do more thought now, why not just let me register from the homepage
and auto-subscribe me to the gold plan and let me know that, you don't require
a credit card either way.

\---

This is purely from the Cloud perspective, but there is much more thinking
required for Gitlab than Github.

\---

Mind dump of subjectivity:

For hosted / feature-set, the way github illustrates their feature offering is
much better than the table on the gitlab homepage as well. It's more about how
much time do I have to vet a product. For someone who is purchasing enterprise
they are more likely to invest more time, but overhead or information overload
or time to trial is a real thing and can be quantified.

\---

As a note, I like gitlab, the product is great, the marketing could use some
work is all. Everyone there does a great job.

~~~
emilycook
Thank you! That was really helpful. Sometimes you just get so familiar with
something that you lose focus on what it's like to view it for the first time,
I'll pass along your feedback

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marmaduke
I like GitLab but noticed my Docker container running it is steadily requiring
more memory to run smoothly. It’s sitting at 12GB right now, which is a little
too high for my taste. I wish there were ways to reduce this.

~~~
lbotos
One of our Engineering Fellows is working Memory Optimization across the
entire product this quarter. We are aware, and starting on it!

~~~
sytse
That fellow would be Stan, the person who just commented with
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18972052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18972052)

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GreaterFool
Sadly, too often GitLab is overlooked for a terrible GitHub+JIRA combo :-(

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meddlepal
Used GitLab maybe 5 years ago now? I was impressed with it despite its
immaturity. These new features look great though.

I found the operation of on-prem GitLab to be a bit of a PITA back then, has
that changed? There was a whole bunch of rake tasks and junk you needed to run
to upgrade and it required a shutdown of the system.

~~~
lbotos
It's a lot easier, and dead simple to run a small single server install. When
you start scaling, it gets a little harder, but our vision it to leverage K8s
for that type of deployment.

(Source: work at GitLab, and I wouldn't If we had to manage the infra by hand
vs. omnibus/k8s)

~~~
meddlepal
Any comment on how well the single server install scales before needing to
invest in the more complex HA solution?

~~~
lbotos
Sure! This depends on your orgs "capacity for risk." We don't recommend more
than ~300 on a single node just for the developer area. If you have 300 people
relying on a literal SPOF (especially a dev shop) that's gonna hurt if there
are any problems. That said, I'm aware of customers running a single 132GB
node that serves somewhere between 3000-5000 devs. (Please do not go this far)

I'd say at the 150 or so developer mark, we should start talking about scaling
(adding a second Geo node for failover at a minimum) or if you need more
robust uptime requirements, going towards a more active-active distributed
cluster. I use the word "distributed" and not "highly available" as we like to
find the right fit for each org. Some orgs need true HA, and it takes
something close to ~30 servers to do it. Others, just can benefit from some
web frontends, and separating out the DB layer, and potentially traffic
shaping to separate CI load / User load.

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snorremd
If GitLab can pull off the npm registry well this might be the beginning of a
universal package management server built into Gitlab. A bit like the self
hosted Nexus registry or Artifactory.

Not sure if it wouldn't be just as well to run Nexus OSS instead though?
[https://www.sonatype.com/nexus-repository-
oss](https://www.sonatype.com/nexus-repository-oss)

You might not get as tight of integration as Gitlab will provide, but the
Nexus OSS repository provides some nice features in terms of cleaning up old
artifacts, some disk usage policies, etc.

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sebazzz
How well does on-premises Gitlab work? Can it run relatively maintenance-free?
I heard some negative stories, but I don't know what is true.

My team of devs doesn't have a dedicated sysadmin.

~~~
pknopf
I'm running GitLab via Docker, and I love it.

I previously managed Atlassian instances and I dreaded ever touching the
servers.

GitLab def has there shit together in this regard.

edit: I forgot, when issue, their docker container uses tmp memory that never
seems to free itself. I occasionally (once a year) have to rm and recreate the
container, which isn't a huge deal for me.

~~~
bochoh
I maintain several Atlassian products in addition to Gitlab on Ubuntu.
Definitely agree - we have a whole snapshot / backup databases routine before
going near the Atlassian boxes.

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notus
I've heard some people saying that the recent free private repos from github
could potentially hurt or impact gitlab. I'm not entirely sure why since it is
free stuff and not things you are paying for. Is there any merit to that or
was I just listening to the wrong person? I'm thinking about applying there

~~~
Macha
I'd imagine the concern is reducing the earliest part of a customer funnel.
First they get the free users. GitHub has the network effects and most open
source projects using it, so gitlab need to be better in other areas like
having free private repos. Then they can upsell these people for features, or
be in the mind of someone making a decision on an enterprise license. If the
early stage of that funnel is cut off, they lose their chance to get customers
to the more profitable parts.

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IloveHN84
Why only love for npm/JavaScript world? I still prefer having a separate
registry for packages (e.g. SonaType Nexus) and let GitLab host code + CI

~~~
brodock
There are more planned. You can read it here:
[https://about.gitlab.com/direction/package/](https://about.gitlab.com/direction/package/)

