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Show HN: Should I Gem

shouldigem.com

7 pointsfuzzygroup10 comments

Here's the quick description that I would have added if there was both url and text in the initial submission:

Ever wondered if it's worth using a gem? ShouldIGem will generate a report card for a gem of your choice. Gems are graded on things like documentation, freshness, support and popularity. ShouldIGem's goal is to help you narrow down which gems you should use in your next project.

Note - The term "gem" is more branding at this point (I am a Rubyist) but it works for any project on Github - C, Node, Python, Rust, etc.

It would be nice if there was a bit more transparency in how the ratings were actually calculated.

An interesting idea. I'm wondering how freshness relates to stability and which is more valuable.

Hi there, Creator here. That's an excellent question and one that I am trying to address but, honestly, I don't have a full answer for yet. I tend to be biased in terms of freshness since things change so rapidly these days but there are certainly open source projects such as QMail or Bind which certainly aren't fresh but are absolutely stellar.

Food for thought. Thank you.

It's a nice idea. I'd appreciate a tool that lets me enter a library and understand its merits along various dimensions. The problem with this tool is that it doesn't give me that understanding, as I have no idea what the grades mean.

The "enter Github repo, get information" part is there. Now you just have to improve the quality of that information. I think the tipping point past which you will suddenly get an influx of users is when someone can use your website as a tool to actually make informed decisions that they couldn't have without it.

Also, it's a tool for developers, so drop the Bootstrap! Either make it resemble the output of a Unix utility — sparse, clean, and compact — or go all the way and make it as gorgeous as Stripe's docs.

Hi Safek, the author here. Thank you for the input. I'm going to think very hard about what you're saying.

What are the criteria here? I put in a gem and got an F in Engineering Practices, while I can't really find how the gem deviates from gem best practices.

Hi Tim,

I dug into it and its an issue with the difference in engineering practices on larger gem projects versus smaller. Perfectly acceptable engineering approaches in the small don't work well on larger projects and right now there is a bias towards larger projects mostly because that's how I implemented it. Let me give it some thought. Thank you very much for the feedback.

Cool, good luck taking this project further :)

Hi Tim,

What's the gem and I'll dig into it to make sure.

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