The Billionth Repository On GitHub Is Really Shitty

What’s the GitHub repository you have created that you think is of most note? Which one do you think of as your magnum opus, the one that you will be remembered by? Was it the CAD files and schematics of a device for ending world hunger, or perhaps it was software designed to end poverty? Spare a thought for [AasishPokhrel] then, for his latest repository is one that he’ll be remembered by for all the wrong reasons. The poor guy created a repository with a scatalogical name, no doubt to store random things, but had the misfortune to inadvertently create the billionth repository on GitHub.

At the time of writing, the 💩 repository sadly contains no commits. But he seems to have won an unexpectedly valuable piece of Internet real estate judging by the attention it’s received, and if we were him we’d be scrambling to fill it with whatever wisdom we wanted the world to see. A peek at his other repos suggests he’s busy learning JavaScript, and we wish him luck in that endeavor.

We think everyone will at some time or another have let loose some code into the wild perhaps with a comment they later regret, or a silly name that later comes back to haunt them. We know we have. So enjoy a giggle at his expense, but don’t give him a hard time. After all, this much entertainment should be rewarded.

37 thoughts on “The Billionth Repository On GitHub Is Really Shitty

  1. Why is the repo image blured? It just says shit, nothing bad or anything? I get that we dont want 5 year olds to say the word shit, because we dobt want them swearing, but to blur it here?

      1. How those cultures study medicine? What do they think about nurses? Do they clean after their dogs? What do they do once they commit blasphemy in toilet? Should we remove above article to not insult them? And what about the one about new toilet for nasa?

        It’s so hard today to not insult someone just by being a human being.

        1. Hmmn. The British are wacky, because in the 15th century they, along with the rest of Europe, used a different definition to that adopted by the USA several centuries later?

  2. Can we say something about how bad it is that so many things are on GitHub for average users of a product, but it is not formatted for people who aren’t programmers?

    Pretty much if a product or a project leads there, I stop looking at it.

    1. … github pretty specifically is a code devolopment tool. What’s a good example of a project that’s using github for general customer-facing non-technical information?

      I feel like the problem here is using github for non-technical info, it’s not it’s purpose. As a coder, I really don’t want to have to format all my git repos for the lay person to understand what’s going on. If it’s a popular project, use a website?

      For that matter use can use github to host a standard looking website (github pages).

      I go to github when I want to bypass all the consumer facing fluffy stuff and find the technical info. That’s what it’s for.

    2. Quite the opposite.
      I am a HaD reader, Linux user and can program a bit, so not a layperson. But oftentimes I get pointed to solutions on github where I have no idea on how to install and/or use them, and have to refer to other, obscure, fora for that information.

    3. i think a lot of people just do a bad job of the final touches on a project that are necessary before publication. it’s not really unique to github.

      there’s a lot of examples, but one that recently hit me again is alsa (the modern kernel sound interface on linux). i remember when it was brand new in the late 90s and they were trying to get people to switch from OSS. by the time i picked it up, all of the API documentation was for a pre-release version, and there was no documentation for the released version. now it has been more than 25 years!! and thankfully the pre-release documentation has mostly disappeared, and the interface has been stable all this time, but the main interface is still undocumented!

      the only reason i’m able to use it at all is that, of course, there’s source code both to the library and to the example programs that come with it. but golly it’s frustrating that it’s still undocumented.

      as an aside, it’s not really a very good API. there’s multiple ways to accomplish most of the core functionality, and the reason to chose one way over the other is exactly what needs documenting. and all of the ways are absurdly over-verbose and there’s a lot of unnecessary setup steps. otoh, it’s
      very usable even so and once you overcome the difficulty of initial setup, it’s funcitonality is solid.

      so my point is just, poor publishing is everywhere. i could say the same about systemd. the flame war is even still active there! even though “it’s not documented very well, but it’s so complicated that you need both introductory and in depth documentation of every corner” is one of the most motivating criticisms, and true believers spend all day saying “your criticisms aren’t true”, no one has sat down and documented it! poor publishing skills is an epidemic.

      in that context, the fact that github shows README.md so prominently that a lot of people actually bother to write something in it actually sets it ahead of the crowd :)

  3. Ah, the botched “get,” in which an impressively big round number is dedicated to a very disappointing post. Nearly as old as the internet itself.

    Legend says that post no. 11 on 4chan was simply “dubs check ’em”

Leave a Reply to NathanCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.