Belfast Ruby - Interesting things from the GitHub codebase

As part of Break (http://breakconf.org), I gave a talk at the Belfast Ruby (http://belfastruby.com/) meetup talking about a few interesting things from the GitHub codebase.

1. Hi, I’m Coby.
2. Hi, I’m @cobyism.
3. Product design at GitHub.
4. A selection of interesting* things I’ve learnt doing design at GitHub. *Actual levels of interestingness may vary.
5. Let’s talk about Philosophy
6. GitHub Zen
7. • Responsive is better than fast. • It’s not fully shipped until it’s fast. • Anything added dilutes everything else. • Practicality beats purity. • Approachable is better than simple. • Mind your words, they are important. • Speak like a human. • Half measures are as bad as nothing at all. • Encourage flow. • Non-blocking is better than blocking. • Favor focus over features. • Avoid administrative distraction. • Design for failure. • Keep it logically awesome.
8. Let’s talk about Practicality
11. Technical scaling probably won’t be your problem.
12. Choose technology your team can rely on.
13. GitHub isn’t a Rails shop. It’s not even a Ruby shop. It’s a Unix shop. — @rtomayko “
14. Let’s talk about Performance
15. Event delegation $('.js-button').on 'click', -> …
16. Event delegation $(document).on 'click', '.js-button', -> …
17. Minimal SCSS
18. Let’s talk about Complexity
19. ViewModels
20. <% if current_user.invitations_enabled? && @team.pending_invitations.any? && @team.adminable_by?(current_user) %> <h3>Pending invitations</h3> <% @team.pending_invitations.each do |…| %> … <% end %> <% end %>
21. app/views/orgs/teams/show.html.erb app/view_models/orgs/teams/show_view.rb
22. class Teams::ShowView < ViewModel attr_reader :team def show_pending_invitations? current_user.invitations_enabled? && team.pending_invitations.any? && team.adminable_by?(current_user) end end
23. <% if view.show_pending_invitations? %> <h3>Pending invitations</h3> <% view.team.pending_invitations.each do |…| %> … <% end %> <% end %>
26. <% if current_repository.pushable_by?(current_user) %> <% if pull_request && pull_request.head_ref_deletable_by?(current_user) && branch != current_repository.default_branch %> <%= link_to "Delete branch", … %> <% end %> <% end %> <% if view.can_delete_branch? %> <%= link_to "Delete branch", … %> <% end %>
27. Feature flags
28. module FeatureFlags def preview_features? staff? end def new_thing_enabled? preview_features? end end
29. class User < ActiveRecord::Base include FeatureFlags end
30. class ApplicationController flags = FeatureFlags.public_instance_methods delegate *flags, to: current_user, allow_nil: true helper_method *flags end
31. <% if new_thing_enabled? %> … <% end %>
32. <% if new_thing_enabled? %> … <% else %> … <% end %>
33. class NewThingController < ApplicationController before_filter :ensure_new_thing_enabled def ensure_new_thing_enabled render_404 unless new_thing_enabled? end end
34. module FeatureFlags def preview_features? staff? end def new_thing_enabled? preview_features? end end ⁉️
35. module FeatureFlags def preview_features? staff? end def new_thing_enabled? preview_features? true end end ✨
36. jnunemaker / flipper !
37. Let’s talk about Tooling
38. peek / peek !
39. github / dat-science !
40. require "dat/science" class YourApp::Widget def allows?(user) experiment = Dat::Science::Experiment.new "widget-permissions" do |e| e.control { model.check_user(user).valid? } e.candidate { user.can? :read, model } end experiment.run end end
41. require "dat/science" class YourApp::Widget include Dat::Science def allows?(user) science "widget-permissions" do |e| e.control { model.check_user(user).valid? } e.candidate { user.can? :read, model } end end end
42. github / dat-analysis !
43. Let’s talk about Responsibility
44. class StarsController < … areas_of_responsibility :explore … end
45. class ReleasesController < … areas_of_responsibility :releases, :git … end
46. class BranchesController < … areas_of_responsibility :pull_requests, :repo_browsing, :web_flow, :git … end
47. --- # Areas of Responsibility in the github/github codebase 2fa: name: "Two-Factor Authentication" teams: - "@github/2fa" abilities: name: "Abilities" teams: - "@github/abilities" - "@github/abilibuddies" api: name: "API / OAuth" teams: - "@github/api" - "@github/oauth-of-tomorrow"
49. Lessons
50. Design faces inwards too.
51. Design cuts through the stack.
52. Learn to code, but don’t get hung up.
53. Learn to design, but don’t get hung up.
54. Thanks! @cobyism