
500 days – the longest streak on GitHub? - Irene
https://github.com/sferik
======
ggreer
Wow, that's impressive! My streak is a mere 416 days so far:
[http://abughrai.be/github_streak_416_days.png](http://abughrai.be/github_streak_416_days.png)

I think the most important thing is that you must _want_ to do it. Without an
innate desire, it would require inhuman willpower to maintain such a streak.
That said, it does get easier over time. Once you get into the habit of doing
at least a little work every day, the streak comes pretty naturally.

I say "want" and not "like" because wanting and liking are not the same thing.
I usually find myself frustrated and annoyed by code, but for some reason I
keep coming back. I think most programmers are weird in that respect. As
Douglas Crockford says:

 _I think there has to be something seriously wrong with you in order to do
this work. A normal person, once they’ve looked into the abyss, will say, “I’m
done. This is stupid. I’m going to do something else.” But not us, ‘cause
there’s something really wrong with us._ [1]

1\.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taaEzHI9xyY#t=26m50s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taaEzHI9xyY#t=26m50s)

~~~
odonnellryan
Wow, and I was proud of my 26 days! Congratulations.

Even if you "force" yourself to do something like this, you will find you
learn so much so quickly by doing it daily for an hour or so.

------
jamii
This may have helped - [https://github.com/codeforamerica/follow-
all/commits?author=...](https://github.com/codeforamerica/follow-
all/commits?author=sferik)

~~~
freerobby
I hate the implication that busywork is somehow less valuable than other kinds
of work. Much of software development isn't intellectually rigorous. Many
deficiencies in OSS could be resolved by people willing to do the same kind of
gruntwork that you linked to here. I see this and think major props to @sferik
for working hard to maintain public code, even when it's not glamorous.

~~~
jamii
I agree, actually. My comment was a pedantic correction and added nothing
useful to the conversation. Props to sferik for the hard work.

------
sartakdotorg
Mine ( [https://github.com/sartak/](https://github.com/sartak/) ) is currently
a 558 day streak. I'm studying Japanese, so I've been committing the new words
I learn (at least one every day!) to my "vocabulary" repo. I started a while
before GitHub even started tracking streaks.

~~~
writetoalok
Is there a website output for the word of the day etc. for the repository
code?

Couldn't find anything quickly on your site
[http://sartak.org](http://sartak.org)

------
euoia
I had a telephone interview this week where the interviewer asked why I hadn't
committed anything recently on GitHub. This wasn't true, I had pushed
something to GitHub that day. But it turns out GitHub uses your git config
email to determine your streak - which was different to my GitHub email - and
so my commits don't show up. I didn't really care, but since potential
employers may consider it I have now fixed the issue. According to [1]:

 _If your previous commits used the correct email, they will start to link
after you add the email to your account. However, it may take some time for
the old data to fall out of the server 's cache before this happens._

[1] [https://help.github.com/articles/why-are-my-commits-
linked-t...](https://help.github.com/articles/why-are-my-commits-linked-to-
the-wrong-user)

~~~
logicallee
I misread that as 'recruiter' (cold-calling you) and got pretty enraged:

"Oh, hey euoia this is ___ from KPFI Recruitment Services. I noticed your
linked-in profile, which is a really great match for an opportunity we have at
a major company in the boxed snack industry - I was just wondering why you
hadn't committed to GitHub this week?"

------
kramerc
According to [http://git.io/top](http://git.io/top) when it last updated last
week, it states michalbe currently has the longest streak. They have a streak
of 561 days as of today according to their profile:
[https://github.com/michalbe](https://github.com/michalbe)

~~~
BruceM
But sadly that list is for people with more than a certain number of
followers. I'm not on it
([https://github.com/waywardmonkeys](https://github.com/waywardmonkeys))
despite having over 2000 contributions and a 417 day streak. :(

------
lappa
[https://github.com/kanzure](https://github.com/kanzure)

4807 day streak

~~~
ohmygeek
how was this done? I see "0 changed files with 0 additions and 0 deletions."
on all commits.. (just wondering)

~~~
est
you can modify git history by filter branch

~~~
Sae5waip
No need to. See "man git-commit".

------
mehwoot
Longest streak for contributions to public repos. Private ones don't show up
unless you have access to them.

~~~
beltex
Or commits to non master branch that don't later get merged -
[https://help.github.com/articles/why-are-my-contributions-
no...](https://help.github.com/articles/why-are-my-contributions-not-showing-
up-on-my-profile)

------
geedew
I can beat it. Give me about 5 minutes and git filter my commits. Not to take
away from the "accomplishment" ( achievement? ) of work, but its easy to
create and post date commits to beat this "record".

~~~
erikpukinskis
That's not beating him, that's cheating. You can make it look like you have
lots of commits but you won't actually be person with the longest streak.

------
james33
I did this last year and reached 235 days (only ending because I got married,
I think that is a valid excuse), but to be honest, it started to become a
distraction because my competitive side took over and I started going out of
my way to make commits when I had actually important things I needed to be
getting done.

------
Raticide
Mine is 9 days. I think I'll keep it that way. You shouldn't live to work.

~~~
mrharrison
Perhaps his work is living.

------
compay
Much respect. But please take a vacation some time soon! You've more than
earned it.

~~~
BruceM
I've maintained a 417 day streak despite taking multiple holidays / vacations.
My overall rule for what I do is to always make at least a little progress
each day. Even if that means I go and fix some grammar or spelling in docs, or
file some bugs, merge pull requests. Maintaining a streak doesn't have to mean
8 hours of work each day. :)

~~~
jaimebuelta
Anyway, I think that just keeping yourself committed to "do something" every
day it's not really a vacation. Sorry, but I find this nonsensical and bad
example...

~~~
doorhammer
One thing I've learned from having been married to my wife is that people have
hugely disparate views of what constitutes a vacation.

For her it's the more standard lounge-at-the-beach vacations. For me it's
always been the feeling that I'm not _compelled_ to do anything by anyone
other than myself. I don't want time bound obligations.

I went to ireland for five weeks or so, and toured by bike, then did some
hitchhiking and general wandering around. I did a lot of reading, and writing,
and some learning/math. Every day I had some random downtime and would have
been totally content fixing a small spelling mistake or two in some docs, if I
had been into programming then.

All that to just say, relaxation and contentment are pretty specifically
personal, and I could see how it wouldn't be a hassle at all, especially if
you've got some good momentum going and all it takes to keep it is to spend a
few minutes committing a grammar fix. Ymmv of course, but that's just my two
cents.

------
zachlatta
Major props to him! I've also been trying to commit every day. My GitHub is
[https://github.com/zachlatta](https://github.com/zachlatta).

------
akerl_
Is anyone aware of a way to pull the current/longest streak for a GitHub user,
besides parsing their page's HTML? I'm aware that I can get the data used to
make the dot chart from
[https://github.com/users/sferik/contributions_calendar_data](https://github.com/users/sferik/contributions_calendar_data)
but that always gives 366 points.

Previously, I thought the Current and Longest Streak counts were dynamically
calculated from the given JSON data, but this shows that's not the case: it
looks like GitHub is inserting those counts right into the HTML on their end.

I can scrape those counts out of the HTML if I need to, but that feels pretty
hacky, and I'd prefer to pull or calculate them in some other way if it's at
all possible.

------
seivan
I did 164 until I deleted a repo(?) and it removed a day and my streak went
down to 94. Still fun though.

------
burkemw3
I agree with ggreer [0] that there must be a _want_ to commit everyday.
sferik, good job in doing what you want, when you want.

When I saw this I was immediately reminded of the recently front page "Your
60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour" [1]. I don't think that each week
for a streak like this requires 60-hours. I know that a streak like this
wouldn't be good for me, and I personally don't think it'd be good for most
people.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7309996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7309996)

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244109](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7244109)

------
NicoJuicy
This is also a interesting one :
[https://gist.github.com/paulmillr/2657075/](https://gist.github.com/paulmillr/2657075/)
(most active users on Github by commits)

------
dpweb
People trying to figure out who to hire - I'd screencap that all green
Contributions box on my resume and call it a day. The picture is even him
typing at a terminal. That's great.

------
doug1001
i just hope this is as far as it goes w/r/t broadcasting these sort of
version-control-metrics. I would hate to see a "who hasn't done a damn thing
all week" list.

------
zbruhnke
I love that he's even coding in his picture, probably because he wouldn't have
a recent one without a computer in his lap. lol ... when I got 40-50 days I
usually feel rather accomplished, this guy makes me feel like a slacker

------
jmtame
That's impressive. I also found this impressive:
[https://github.com/god](https://github.com/god) (click on repositories)

~~~
zbruhnke
Classic ... if only his longest streak was 7 days instead of 3 ... it was all
created in a week right?

~~~
zaroth
6\. He rested on the 7th.

------
bevacqua
In all honestly, that's easily tampered with.

See:
[https://github.com/bevacqua/gitcanvas](https://github.com/bevacqua/gitcanvas)

------
NKCSS
It's not that hard; there are people out there that created activity bots to
create messages in your activity heatmap, etc.

------
MattBearman
I love programming, but doing it EVERY day for a year and half sounds like my
nightmare.

------
tuananh
I saw the list of commit; most of them are 'update ... to version xx'..

------
jyz
WELL, f*ck! There goes my grand plan to reach 356 and post on Hacker news

------
gshakir
Github should not take weekends into account.

------
thomasfoster96
I thought I was pretty happy with myself when I passed 10 days. Not any
longer.

~~~
flaxin
hey mine is 3 days - imagine how i feel :(

500 freaken' days - RESPECT

------
wehadfun
what was it like working on mt.gox? is the code crappy?

