
Show HN: Poetically simple code review on GitHub - beliu
https://text.sourcegraph.com/poetically-simple-code-review-e6804724b8e8
======
brian-armstrong
Unfortunately Github's code review is still a far cry from mature review tools
like Phab or Gerrit. The code folding in the latter reviewers is always better
and leaving inline notes does not apply as individual messages. The reviewee
can also more easily reply to each line individually and it is much easier to
compare previous diffs.

GH's code review tool doesn't seem useful for diffs longer than 20 lines or
so. I'm curious why they've never bothered to address this shortcoming.

~~~
piotrkaminski
AFAICT this stems from a different philosophy of what a code review should be
for. GitHub appears to believe that code reviews should be very high-level,
with most discussion focused on overall design issues and only the latest
version of the code, rather than detailed line-by-line reviews of incremental
changes. This attitude is shared by at least some number of GitHub users,
since many people who visit [https://reviewable.io](https://reviewable.io) (my
attempt at a code review tool in the vein of Phab or Gerrit) don't even get
why it might be needed. So perhaps GitHub is not entirely wrong... but it
certainly opens up a nice niche for providing tools to those who like more
thorough reviews.

~~~
brian-armstrong
In my experience of giving code reviews, I don't see how you would be able to
achieve the same quality with just a high-level review. Coding standards and
uniformity in code bases are so important, and you just can't achieve that
with the high-level review

~~~
piotrkaminski
I wholeheartedly agree, but clearly other people have different thoughts or
priorities. :)

------
arunc
I've used FogCreek's Kiln and honestly, their code review is amazing. No other
product comes close to it. No context switch and to the point.

My current org don't use it and I really miss it.

[http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/features/code-
reviews](http://www.fogcreek.com/fogbugz/features/code-reviews)

~~~
Motomorgen
I've always been a huge fan of fogcreek software (fogbugz and kiln) but I've
never worked anywhere that would use them.

Whenever I see places come up with lists of options for new issue tracking and
code review tools I never even see them on the list which is a shame

------
barakm
So, pet peeve time. Every once and a while Sourcegraph comes up again, and I
check to see if they've moved away from trying to do their (completely non-
free) Fair Source thing. ([https://fair.io/](https://fair.io/))

This time it seems they have, mostly! None of their code on Github uses it,
and the sourcegraph/sourcegraph project itself has gone private. Leading to a
broken link on some of their repos (eg,
[https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph-browser-
extension...](https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph-browser-extensions))
-- but, hey, it's not like it was required to stay open, so, fair enough.

Now if they can just update their terms of service to remove any question of
it (it's still there), and I'm on board. Because I really want to use this!

~~~
boyter
What exactly is your issue with that licence? I ask having published some code
under it recently. I understand that it's "non free" but half the time people
on seem to want source because they think they should see it.

I am going to put a timebomb in my software though. Each major release will
become GPL3 exactly 3 years after its release. Would these terms be acceptable
to you?

~~~
piotrkaminski
I'm also curious what the issue is. While I understand that a full open source
license would be preferable to many, if the choice is between Fair Source and
a proprietary code base, is there a rational reason for users to prefer the
latter? (Assuming, of course, that the licensor doesn't try to spin the Fair
Source as open source in PR, which would be annoying. I assume Sourcegraph
doesn't do this, though.)

~~~
sqs
Sourcegraph CEO here. Your assumption is right. :) The Fair Source site
([https://fair.io](https://fair.io)) and our own materials are clear about
Fair Source not being open source. If you see any folks out there getting
confused, let me know!

------
beliu
I'm the author of the post and contributed to the CR extension -- I'd love to
hear people's feedback! (on the extension, please not the poetry)

~~~
jzila
I can't seem to enable indexing for my team's public repos, only my own. Other
sites with GitHub login (e.g. Travis) allow you to login as your team rather
than your individual user. Can this be enabled?

~~~
beliu
Thanks for checking it out! We'll investigate this ASAP. Can you shoot me an
email at hi@sourcegraph.com and we'll follow up directly? (Just don't want to
turn the discussion forum into a support thread.)

------
piotrkubisa
It is worth noting that Sourcegraph also published add-on for Mozilla Firefox
[1].

[1]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/sourcegraph-a...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/sourcegraph-addon-for-github/)

------
meesles
I appreciate that everything is Haikus :)

------
MonkoftheFunk
Gitlab support?

~~~
randing89
Bitbucket support?

