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GitHub Survivor: a bug leaderboard for GitHub issues

67 points by harto 14y ago

sergiotapia 14y ago
I love this idea! Makes me wish we could implement something like this where I work. But I always remember that we're a business first, and software development office second. :( Edit: Meaning, we don't sell software, but we need software to run our day to day.
- dlutzy 14y ago
  1. git clone https://github.com/99designs/githubsurvivor.git https://github.com/99designs/githubsurvivor.git 2. profit :-)
jjbohn 14y ago
This is really cool. Definitely want to implement someone like this with my teams.
kurrent 14y ago
How do you address that somebody could take on 5 bugs that take 5 minutes to fix versus the guy who takes the 1 bug that takes 5 hours to fix?
- harto 14y ago
  Good question! We currently track that externally. E.g. in the issue description we might say "This is worth 100 whisky-points". It would be cool to build in a notion of value.
lucian303 14y ago
I can't think of a more worthless and demoralizing idea. Not all bugs are created equal, thus the measure is inaccurate.
- richo 14y ago
  Noones treating this as a definitive source of truth. It's a fun way to gamify our bug squashing efforts.
decklin 14y ago
Before reading the article, I hoped this was going to have something to do with the oldest issues (open, fixed recently, commented, etc) across all of GitHub. Does such a thing exist?
carbocation 14y ago
When designing systems that reward bugfixes, beware the Cobra effect. [1] [1] = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
- harto 14y ago
  On the other hand, it's an incentive for devs to log and fix minor issues they might've otherwise ignored.
  - watt 14y ago
    If you start measuring some metric, the team will adapt at improving that metric, but inevitably this will spill out into distorting or lowering performance in some other aspect. So as you point out, such survivor board might make team focus on fixing trivial/easy issues, but the issues requiring big time investment might go unfixed (as it would make 10 trivial issues pile up while you fix 1 old hard ticket - which will make you look bad). Just make sure this is what you want.
    - harto 14y ago
      Interesting. Assigning a bounty to difficult bugs might mitigate that effect (as mentioned elsewhere).
    - lvh 14y ago
      This is anecdotal evidence, but this hasn't happened in over 2 years of having this thing[1] at Twisted[2]. People understand it's fun and games, and it is not the true measure of success. Real success, including bringing in old/hard tickets, doing release management... etc is very much celebrated, even if it's not visible on the board. Another comment that has been made here is that you shouldn't have giant monstro-tickets: they should be split up wherever possible. Clearly that's not possible in every case, but the point is that monstro-tickets aught to be the rare case. [1]: https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ [2]: https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/ https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/
- 14y ago
lvh 14y ago
Twisted created one of these a good long while ago[1], and then someone adapted it for Github[2]. This one looks very fancy though :) [1]: https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ [2]: https://github.com/leereilly/github-high-scores/ https://github.com/leereilly/github-high-scores/, also https://github.com/kans/highscores https://github.com/kans/highscores
- harto 14y ago
  Wow, very similar style. I don't think we were aware of those!
lox 14y ago
How embarrassing, I guess I'd better close some bugs.

67 points by harto 14y ago

I love this idea! Makes me wish we could implement something like this where I work. But I always remember that we're a business first, and software development office second. :( Edit: Meaning, we don't sell software, but we need software to run our day to day.

dlutzy 14y ago
1. git clone https://github.com/99designs/githubsurvivor.git https://github.com/99designs/githubsurvivor.git 2. profit :-)

jjbohn 14y ago

This is really cool. Definitely want to implement someone like this with my teams.

kurrent 14y ago

How do you address that somebody could take on 5 bugs that take 5 minutes to fix versus the guy who takes the 1 bug that takes 5 hours to fix?

harto 14y ago
Good question! We currently track that externally. E.g. in the issue description we might say "This is worth 100 whisky-points". It would be cool to build in a notion of value.

lucian303 14y ago

I can't think of a more worthless and demoralizing idea. Not all bugs are created equal, thus the measure is inaccurate.

richo 14y ago
Noones treating this as a definitive source of truth. It's a fun way to gamify our bug squashing efforts.

decklin 14y ago

Before reading the article, I hoped this was going to have something to do with the oldest issues (open, fixed recently, commented, etc) across all of GitHub. Does such a thing exist?

carbocation 14y ago

When designing systems that reward bugfixes, beware the Cobra effect. [1] [1] = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect

harto 14y ago
On the other hand, it's an incentive for devs to log and fix minor issues they might've otherwise ignored.
- watt 14y ago
  If you start measuring some metric, the team will adapt at improving that metric, but inevitably this will spill out into distorting or lowering performance in some other aspect. So as you point out, such survivor board might make team focus on fixing trivial/easy issues, but the issues requiring big time investment might go unfixed (as it would make 10 trivial issues pile up while you fix 1 old hard ticket - which will make you look bad). Just make sure this is what you want.
  - harto 14y ago
    Interesting. Assigning a bounty to difficult bugs might mitigate that effect (as mentioned elsewhere).
  - lvh 14y ago
    This is anecdotal evidence, but this hasn't happened in over 2 years of having this thing[1] at Twisted[2]. People understand it's fun and games, and it is not the true measure of success. Real success, including bringing in old/hard tickets, doing release management... etc is very much celebrated, even if it's not visible on the board. Another comment that has been made here is that you shouldn't have giant monstro-tickets: they should be split up wherever possible. Clearly that's not possible in every case, but the point is that monstro-tickets aught to be the rare case. [1]: https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ [2]: https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/ https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/
14y ago

lvh 14y ago

Twisted created one of these a good long while ago[1], and then someone adapted it for Github[2]. This one looks very fancy though :) [1]: https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ https://twistedmatrix.com/highscores/ [2]: https://github.com/leereilly/github-high-scores/ https://github.com/leereilly/github-high-scores/, also https://github.com/kans/highscores https://github.com/kans/highscores

harto 14y ago
Wow, very similar style. I don't think we were aware of those!

lox 14y ago

How embarrassing, I guess I'd better close some bugs.