Comment by danpalmer
10 years ago
I'd settle for just a fix to the (minor) data-loss bug that I reported nearly a year ago, and which still crops up once a month or so.
That, and something for code review. Pull Requests are terrible for code review, and it wouldn't take that much to make them so much better.
I got frustrated waiting for improved PR code review, so I built https://reviewable.io. It's best suited for private repos (since there's a learning curve that make throw off potential open source contributors) but it addresses a lot of the issues with PRs. Take a look!
I've actually looked at Reviewable multiple times for use within our team, but never decided to use it. From my usage of the demo, it feels complicated. There are a lot of controls on the screen, and I struggle to tell what exactly I'm looking at at any given time.
I also tried the demo, and was shocked to see that Reviewable had edited our PR descriptions to include a big "Review on Reviewable" badge. We currently make heavy use of PR descriptions in quite specific formats, and it felt like Reviewable was forcing itself upon us.
To be clear, I'm really glad someone is looking at this problem, and Reviewable looks like a step in the right direction. I'm just quite opinionated on code review and developer tools, and I feel like it could be much better.
Thanks for checking out Reviewable, and sorry it didn't work out for you. It's definitely a more complex tool than plain PRs but you also get a lot more functionality in return.
If you checked it out before I added the interactive onboarding (aka butterflies) and on-demand help you might want to try (yet) again, since I've been told it makes it a lot more approachable. Otherwise, and if you have the time, I'd love to sit down with you (virtually or otherwise) to do a short user study so I can better understand the UX pain points and maybe fix them.
As for the badge, it's actually mostly there to help developers find their way to the review. In public repos, it's also the marketing payment for the otherwise free service, but in private repos I can switch it off for you (the flag doesn't have a UI yet).
I'm always looking to improve Reviewable, but in the end it's unabashedly opinionated too, and sometimes those opinions will clash -- I'm OK with that. I'd rather make a tool that some people will love than an enterprise monster that everyone will love to hate. :)