Tag: rant

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Someone should fix how GitHub counts contributions

A snapshot of my GitHub contributions

I have been doing a lot of commits lately. Sadly, none of my dozens of commits are included in my total contribution count on GitHub. Why? Because all those commits were to a forked repository. It’s 2019, and I think it’s plain stupid.

I love GitHub, but if there was one thing I’d like to fix about GitHub it would be this. It’s understandable why GitHub made this rule back in the day when they were introducing the contributions map/tracker thingy. Perhaps it was a decent guard against simply copying someone else’s work and adding a few minor commits here and there just to boost your “score”.

But it’s 2019; it’s modern times. Just think about it. One could be forking from a base/boilerplate repository that contains non-substantial code to build something substantial on top of it. This is exactly how I have been using forks lately. As part of following along the Flutter bootcamp-style course, I created a bunch of forks from the course creator’s boilerplates and transformed them into proper apps. I deserve to be recognized for that! It’s as simple as that.

Here’s what GitHub’s documentation has to say about how contributions are counted:

Commits made in a fork will not count toward your contributions. To make them count, you must do one of the following:

1. Open a pull request to have your changes merged into the parent repository.
2. To detach the fork and turn it into a standalone repository on GitHub, contact GitHub Support or GitHub Premium Support. If the fork has forks of its own, let support know if the forks should move with your repository into a new network or remain in the current network. For more information, see “About forks.”

Why are my contributions not showing up on my profile?

Those two options are not plausible every time, since:

  • Opening a pull request in the parent repository just does not make sense when the upstream is intentionally boilerplate. Asking its author to merge your commits into it would be like asking them to publicly publish the solution to their puzzle.
  • Contact GitHub support? Really? Who has the time and patience to do that when you’re working with dozens of forks?

GitHub, if you are listening at all, PLEASE FIX THIS!

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Don’t blame the players, blame the board

Enough! The huge defeat of the no. 1 Cricket test team at the hands of the English side was enough humiliation for the players already. But think about it, the Indian team lost the match because they didn’t have the will to win? True that the Brits had a seemingly more fierce hunger for a win, but how did they go about it? By practising. Now don’t even start by saying that India had the best and most experienced players in Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Harbhajan. Experience is one thing, but you need constant practice to keep yourself upto that level, especially in tests. But where was that practice? And who is culpable for that? The players, who never got the time and chance to acclimatize themselves on foreign soil? No. It’s the board, of course, who truly deserves the blame.

On one hand, BCCI wants to fill their vaults with huge piles of cash, and at the same time wants its players to “switch” between different formats of the game within the matter of days. They even forgot that the Brits were going into the series with a big advantage at their side – home conditions. And given the Indians’ lack of ability to play the swing and short balls, what did the board do to correct that? If it could not arrange for west-like bouncy pitches in India itself (for simulation of foreign conditions), they could, at least, have arranged for more time for the Indian team to practise in England itself before the start of the series. Shame, a real shame that did not happen.

I bet the day when the board starts caring less about the money and more about the true spirit of the game, India will start winning matches, consistently.