Comment by dwheeler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dwheeler | Hacker News Reader

Gource is a really cool visualization tool. Here's a Gource visualization of development of the Python programming language (C Python implementation, aka CPython): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNBtDstOTmA Here's a collection of Gource visualizations: https://github.com/acaudwell/Gource/wiki/Videos

If you create your own visualizations, I strongly recommend that you automate doing it as much as possible. For example, if you process data first, use a script to automate processing the data. You'll need to give Gource various options, and there are a lot of options; store options in its config file or scripts.

Also, if you create a Gource video, I strongly recommend adding some music or at least an audio commentary. If you add music, make sure it's legal to add; the safe route is to use music released under open licenses such as Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) CC0 Public Domain Dedication (CC0). Beware of the "non-commercial use" licenses - your releases might count as "commercial" even if you don't think they do (talk to a lawyer if you want to go down that path). A great place to start for Gource music is audionautix.com ( https://audionautix.com/ ), which has released lots of music under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; you can select from lots of different styles and get some great options. "Improving Gource Videos with Background and Audio" ( https://fransdejonge.com/2018/02/improving-gource-videos-wit... ) has some tips and instructions.

Hmm, why do you recommend adding music? This is a pet peeve of mine, many videos would be better without attaching unrelated music to them. Less processing is better.

Because you can!

There's always the mute button. Gource would be mute by default, so you're not losing anything.

I actually think the music in that Python vid is awesome.

Because it can add something. Here’s a gource animation from nearly a decade ago, when we ship-of-theseused an ecommerce platform, and did a complete rewrite. I actually ended up forcing the output day length to match the music.

https://youtu.be/IxKveFcXsAM

> Hmm, why do you recommend adding music?

For the human. Videos are way more interesting to most people if there's an audio track of some kind. Anyone who doesn't like the sound can mute it.

Less processing really isn't relevant. CPU is cheap. Yes, audio does take some additional space & network, but it's practically nothing compared to the space required for a video. So if you're making a video anyway, add some sound and make it interesting for the human who's viewing it.

Not really picking sides but the one thing I hate with music is that if I for any reason would not like to listen to it. Maybe I'm already listening to music - maybe I don't have my headphones on and don't want to disturb anyone else (or don't have speakers). Or I'm on a laptop/phone where the speakers are just terrible.

If I press the mute button I will not know if I'm missing out on some important commentary.

There should be a standardized way to convey that the audio is optional and doesn't directly relate to the video. To be fair this also applies to videos without sound (how am I supposed to know there is no sound unless I've watched the whole thing?) - though with the advantage that one can leave it unmuted and at least detect if someone starts talking.

I like the idea of having some standardized way of noting that. The indicator would have to be short and clear. Any ideas? Maybe "Music-only audio"?

I like the music. And you can mute it. Everyone wins!

Notch released a video of the Minecraft development history, that's when I first heard of Gource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRjTyRly5WA

It would be cool if Gource could generate the audio track for you based on the commits in the repository.

Ha, last year I have created a video which showed 7 years of GitLab Community Edition history in 2.5 minutes and put some music from https://www.bensound.com behind it. It is definitely fun to analyze bigger projects. Maybe I should do the Linux Kernel, but my fear would be rendering that could take quite long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6ltmzQLO6k

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