I check this page everyday. A lot of my starred repos come from this page.
For me, the Trending page is even more useful than Explore page. Still wondering why Explore page has more spotlight than Trending page.
For me, the Trending page is even more useful than Explore page. Still wondering why Explore page has more spotlight than Trending page.
I think this hints at part of the problem with Github as a social hub for tech. I do the same thing, and star things I've seen in the Trending page. Very often I never actually go back to those things though. That star is essentially a signal to the repo owner saying "I'm happy this exists." The problem is that there are also people who star things to say "I love this" or "I am using this" or simply "I'm bookmarking this."
That's fine, of course, but then repo owners then start saying things like "My library has 5000 stars, it's clearly the best library for X!" and "My library got to 20000 stars much more quickly than Y and Z, so people must think it's better than Y and Z!"
Github probably should turn off the social features unless they can think up a way of discouraging people using the social aspect as a measure of quality or popularity when they're really not those things.
The trending page otoh is nice and fresh, though I wish they'd change it to prevent already popular repos like typescript from "trending" (why are people starring this? ridiculous.)
When one of my (quite obscure) repos get stars, I feel joy. I like to think starring someone else's repo has that same reaction for them, too.
- Saying "I think it's neat" internet points is kindof a nice kudos. It's relatively pleasing to see some stars on your repositories.
- It's an indication of popularity/usage. If you have to rely on some dependency, "choose the one with the most stars" will probably give you a good result for next to no effort.
- In terms of social networking: I can then see what repositories others have starred.