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0 pointsAYBABTME12y ago0 comments

How is this a useful comment? Everybody knows that Git is distributed. Everytime Github's down, somebody feels the urge to remind everybody else about that.

Github's not only Git. Lots of services integrate with Github. Stuff like continuous integration, continuous deployment. If your system is built on those things, Github being down will prevent you from deploying.

What's the alternative, replicate everything in-house/self hosted? Should startup stop using third party service providers?

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6 comments · 2 top-level

akerl_12y ago· 4 in thread

If your workflow involves services that integrate with GitHub, you should have a plan for when GitHub is not available. You've got your source code elsewhere, you should have docs and procedures for running the tests in your own dev environments and for utilizing whatever staging/deploy process you prefer without GitHub as an intermediary.

I continue to post comments like that because while I love GitHub, watching the community put all their eggs in GitHub's basket, especially when GitHub lives on top of a tool designed to avoid SPoFs, is concerning.

hamburglar12y ago

100%. GitHub is amazing. GitHub is a wonderful tool. GitHub is also just a service cooked up by a handful of jokers who got enough funding to make it happen, and they do a reasonable job of keeping it running most of the time. I wish them all the best, and yet making my own company's infrastructure reliant on it is not something I'm comfortable with. Sometimes they're going to blow it, and that's ok. If them blowing it means my business is affected, I'm the dummy.

skrebbel12y ago

> jokers who got enough funding to make it happen

While I agree with the general gist of your comment, GitHub was entirely self-funded up until about a year ago or so. they didn't "get" funding, they made real money and reinvested it and grew.

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brokenparser12y ago

> especially when GitHub lives on top of a tool designed to avoid SPoFs

You're saying it as if it were a bad thing.

akerl_12y ago

No? The fact that GitHub is based on a distributed tool is a large part of what makes it so awesome. I can take advantage of the sweet social/collaborative elements of GitHub without locking myself to a central server. If the lower-level they used weren't so open/distributed, I doubt GitHub would have taken off like it has.

Silhouette12y ago

What's the alternative, replicate everything in-house/self hosted?

Erm... Yes? You write that as if hosting your own repository is somehow a foolish or implausible thing to do.

Should startup stop using third party service providers?

Stop? Maybe, maybe not, it obviously depends on the circumstances.

Stop relying on them without a back-up plan? Absolutely. If you can't run your essential systems without GitHub, or any other third party system that isn't under your direct control, then you need better contingency planning.

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