6 ms·

Gitcolony – The next generation of pull requests

36 points by mfocaraccio 11y ago

caio1982 11y ago
Uh, "request a demo"? I was expecting a little bit more of juicy info in those pages after reading some bold statements. I can't sign up either (even if you tell me in green letters no credit card is required), sorry. You should have just provided maybe a better overview of the service in the landing page. Dunno, maybe a full-featured video of the revolutionary features described there. I really think a nice detailed video of the unique features of the service would be great to have. It's hard to visualize what you mean with those static screenshots and text.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Yep, I immediately went to see some screens, and all they have are these tiny little things that don't let me see anything. Looks like there's a nice design, but that's it. I can understand that doing a video takes more time, but a nice screenshot tour should be doable. Or even making the current shots clickable to zoom.
  - mfocaraccio 11y ago
    Thank you for your feedback and nice words about the design. As I said in the previous comment, we will work on that video and will keep you posted about it! :) Meanwhile, feel free to create a free account, I would love to hear your feedback.
    - hliyan 11y ago
      Is someone maliciously downvoting OP's comments? Granted a few of them don't say much more than "thanks, will keep you posted" and OP has made 5 HN submissions on Gitcolony over a year (https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gitcolony.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gitcolony.com). But unless I'm missing something, I see nothing downvote worthy here.
  - roryokane 11y ago
    The site displays the screenshots small, but the image files are full-size. Until the site creators add click-to-zoom, you can see the screenshots better by right-clicking them and opening them in tabs of their own.
- mfocaraccio 11y ago
  Thank you for your feedback, we will work on that video and will keep you posted about it! :) Meanwhile, feel free to create a free account, I would love to hear your feedback.
  - tarsius 11y ago
    I clicked on "Sign in" which took my to Github, where I confirmed. That took me to https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found. When I explicitly revisit https://www.gitcolony.com https://www.gitcolony.com, then I am still not signed in. The "Sign in" button is still there and if I click on it I am taken to https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found again.
    - mfocaraccio 11y ago
      I'm sorry that you are experiencing that issue, can you please send us an email to contact@gitcolony.com so we can try to reproduce it and help you with that? Thanks! :)
gkop 11y ago
Looks like a hosting-agnostic solution somewhere between the opinionation of GitHub and the flexibility of Gerrit? I could see this taking off. GitHub is too opinionated and over-simplified for the tastes of some, while Gerrit is much more powerful but also showing its age.
- mfocaraccio 11y ago
  That's definitely the idea! We want to run on top of Github/other git hosting solutions to be able to setup your own rules while being more flexible and better than Gerrit (we think that the commit by commit approach it's definitely not the most efficient one). Since GitHub started to grow, pull requests became very popular for open source contributions. Now, companies are also using them to reinforce their internal code review process. We think this can work even better by building the next generation of pull requests, helping companies to improve their process.
  - gkop 11y ago
    My advice is to absolutely nail the abstraction layer between CI and code review. Remember that the most valuable software often has large build matrices and necessarily complicated code review <> CI workflows. Gerrit+Jenkins is actually surprisingly limited in these regards. GitHub+[Circle,Travis] delivers surprisingly close to the same level of flexibility here as Gerrit+Jenkins.
    - mfocaraccio 11y ago
      Super interesting feedback, I super appreciate it :) Actually we are working now to manage the whole merge process and then CI + code review is our next item to tackle. I will keep you posted about our progress!
toadkicker 11y ago
"Code as its written" fine for collaborators, bad for over zealous managers.
- mfocaraccio 11y ago
  Interesting debate! We want to improve the code review process for collaborators. If we improve that process for collaborators, in the long term it will be better also for managers :)
timr 11y ago
What does "live branches" mean? It isn't clear from the descripton on the site, and there's no further information...
- mfocaraccio 11y ago
  Our fault, we need to update that name to "Virtual Pull Requests" (we renamed them on our last release). The main idea is that you can have a "virtual" pull request since the moment you create the branch (you can set up to get it done automatically by Gitcolony). Basically, you have a PR before you even create a pull request, but it's just virtual because it doesn't exist on Github, it only exists within the boundaries of Gitcolony. This makes visible your work so your team can review it from the get go, without the risk of merging it by mistake. And whenever you want, you can convert it to a traditional PR just with one click :)
hliyan 11y ago
It looks great! One minor problem though. Once I'm signed on, I can't seem to access the Gitcolony home page again (to see pricing etc.) -- I always get redirected to the dashboard. P.S. I totally agree with this quote: Ask a programmer to review 10 lines of code, he'll find 10 issues. Ask him to do 500 lines and he'll say it looks good.
- mfocaraccio 11y ago
  Thank you for the nice words! Yeah, that's intentionally, but we can definitely improve that! (Meanwhile you can enter using this url http://gitcolony.com/pricing http://gitcolony.com/pricing) That one is a great quote, isn't it? :)
apinstein 11y ago
We hit the edges of GitHub pull request productivity a while back. It's really painful for large complicated code reviews that raise issues. Was impossible to quickly review code and have confidence all raised issues were addressed. Been using Reviewable for the last few weeks and it's been really great at addressing these issues. Worth checking out, and I will check this one out too.
Chimp2000 11y ago
When I first saw the name, I mistakenly read it as "Gitcolonoscopy". For those who don't know, a colonoscopy is a medical procedure wherein a tube-like camera is inserted into a patient's anus, rectum and bowels, in order for a doctor to view areas that are otherwise difficult to view. It isn't the best imagery to accidentally associate with a software product, I'm afraid!
J_Darnley 11y ago
> next generation of pull requests Would that be send-email?
- mfocaraccio 11y ago
  No it's not :) In fact, we know that devs don't like emails, so we manage everything from our tool (plus integrations with Slack & Hipchat). In addition, we know that emails don't work, so we want to create actionable items directly from Gitcolony, no more emails with a list of things to improve. Just create your TODOs and tickets while you review your code and notify those users that need to be involved!
miah_ 11y ago
copy suggestion: "Ask a programmer to review 10 lines of code, they'll find 10 issues. Ask them to review 500 lines and they'll say it looks good".

36 points by mfocaraccio 11y ago

caio1982 11y ago

Uh, "request a demo"? I was expecting a little bit more of juicy info in those pages after reading some bold statements. I can't sign up either (even if you tell me in green letters no credit card is required), sorry. You should have just provided maybe a better overview of the service in the landing page. Dunno, maybe a full-featured video of the revolutionary features described there. I really think a nice detailed video of the unique features of the service would be great to have. It's hard to visualize what you mean with those static screenshots and text.

MichaelGG 11y ago
Yep, I immediately went to see some screens, and all they have are these tiny little things that don't let me see anything. Looks like there's a nice design, but that's it. I can understand that doing a video takes more time, but a nice screenshot tour should be doable. Or even making the current shots clickable to zoom.
- mfocaraccio 11y ago
  Thank you for your feedback and nice words about the design. As I said in the previous comment, we will work on that video and will keep you posted about it! :) Meanwhile, feel free to create a free account, I would love to hear your feedback.
  - hliyan 11y ago
    Is someone maliciously downvoting OP's comments? Granted a few of them don't say much more than "thanks, will keep you posted" and OP has made 5 HN submissions on Gitcolony over a year (https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gitcolony.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=gitcolony.com). But unless I'm missing something, I see nothing downvote worthy here.
- roryokane 11y ago
  The site displays the screenshots small, but the image files are full-size. Until the site creators add click-to-zoom, you can see the screenshots better by right-clicking them and opening them in tabs of their own.
mfocaraccio 11y ago
Thank you for your feedback, we will work on that video and will keep you posted about it! :) Meanwhile, feel free to create a free account, I would love to hear your feedback.
- tarsius 11y ago
  I clicked on "Sign in" which took my to Github, where I confirmed. That took me to https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found. When I explicitly revisit https://www.gitcolony.com https://www.gitcolony.com, then I am still not signed in. The "Sign in" button is still there and if I click on it I am taken to https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found https://www.gitcolony.com/?error=not_found again.
  - mfocaraccio 11y ago
    I'm sorry that you are experiencing that issue, can you please send us an email to contact@gitcolony.com so we can try to reproduce it and help you with that? Thanks! :)

gkop 11y ago

Looks like a hosting-agnostic solution somewhere between the opinionation of GitHub and the flexibility of Gerrit? I could see this taking off. GitHub is too opinionated and over-simplified for the tastes of some, while Gerrit is much more powerful but also showing its age.

mfocaraccio 11y ago
That's definitely the idea! We want to run on top of Github/other git hosting solutions to be able to setup your own rules while being more flexible and better than Gerrit (we think that the commit by commit approach it's definitely not the most efficient one). Since GitHub started to grow, pull requests became very popular for open source contributions. Now, companies are also using them to reinforce their internal code review process. We think this can work even better by building the next generation of pull requests, helping companies to improve their process.
- gkop 11y ago
  My advice is to absolutely nail the abstraction layer between CI and code review. Remember that the most valuable software often has large build matrices and necessarily complicated code review <> CI workflows. Gerrit+Jenkins is actually surprisingly limited in these regards. GitHub+[Circle,Travis] delivers surprisingly close to the same level of flexibility here as Gerrit+Jenkins.
  - mfocaraccio 11y ago
    Super interesting feedback, I super appreciate it :) Actually we are working now to manage the whole merge process and then CI + code review is our next item to tackle. I will keep you posted about our progress!

toadkicker 11y ago

"Code as its written" fine for collaborators, bad for over zealous managers.

mfocaraccio 11y ago
Interesting debate! We want to improve the code review process for collaborators. If we improve that process for collaborators, in the long term it will be better also for managers :)

timr 11y ago

What does "live branches" mean? It isn't clear from the descripton on the site, and there's no further information...

mfocaraccio 11y ago
Our fault, we need to update that name to "Virtual Pull Requests" (we renamed them on our last release). The main idea is that you can have a "virtual" pull request since the moment you create the branch (you can set up to get it done automatically by Gitcolony). Basically, you have a PR before you even create a pull request, but it's just virtual because it doesn't exist on Github, it only exists within the boundaries of Gitcolony. This makes visible your work so your team can review it from the get go, without the risk of merging it by mistake. And whenever you want, you can convert it to a traditional PR just with one click :)

hliyan 11y ago

It looks great! One minor problem though. Once I'm signed on, I can't seem to access the Gitcolony home page again (to see pricing etc.) -- I always get redirected to the dashboard. P.S. I totally agree with this quote: Ask a programmer to review 10 lines of code, he'll find 10 issues. Ask him to do 500 lines and he'll say it looks good.

mfocaraccio 11y ago
Thank you for the nice words! Yeah, that's intentionally, but we can definitely improve that! (Meanwhile you can enter using this url http://gitcolony.com/pricing http://gitcolony.com/pricing) That one is a great quote, isn't it? :)

apinstein 11y ago

We hit the edges of GitHub pull request productivity a while back. It's really painful for large complicated code reviews that raise issues. Was impossible to quickly review code and have confidence all raised issues were addressed. Been using Reviewable for the last few weeks and it's been really great at addressing these issues. Worth checking out, and I will check this one out too.

Chimp2000 11y ago

When I first saw the name, I mistakenly read it as "Gitcolonoscopy". For those who don't know, a colonoscopy is a medical procedure wherein a tube-like camera is inserted into a patient's anus, rectum and bowels, in order for a doctor to view areas that are otherwise difficult to view. It isn't the best imagery to accidentally associate with a software product, I'm afraid!

J_Darnley 11y ago

> next generation of pull requests Would that be send-email?

mfocaraccio 11y ago
No it's not :) In fact, we know that devs don't like emails, so we manage everything from our tool (plus integrations with Slack & Hipchat). In addition, we know that emails don't work, so we want to create actionable items directly from Gitcolony, no more emails with a list of things to improve. Just create your TODOs and tickets while you review your code and notify those users that need to be involved!

miah_ 11y ago

copy suggestion: "Ask a programmer to review 10 lines of code, they'll find 10 issues. Ask them to review 500 lines and they'll say it looks good".