GitHub Anoyances

2023-08-24 20:45:58Z (last updated 2023-10-27 20:59:06Z)

GitHub kinda sucks

Instead of a blog post about brainfuck (it really screwed with my brain for quite a while), I decided it was a good idea to write about GitHub, and how it sucks.

It requires JavaScript

It requires JavaScript to function at all on the client side, which is not great when sourcehut proves you don't really need JavaScript for everything and GitHub poorly reimplements shit in JavaScript.

sourcehut

It can't even properly reimplement URL fragments

This will probably require Firefox Desktop, and definitely requires manually scrolling and stuff:

1. Open this link (to a GitHub repo)

2. Scroll down to the table of contents section

3. Click a link in there

4. Press the back button in Firefox

5. Click a link in there (yes, again)

6. Press the back button in Firefox (again)

Notice that on the second time, you're on the same place, not back to the table of contents (which happened on the first time). Previously, pressing the back button the first time would let nothing happen, but then they "fixed" it by also further reimplementing the URL fragments feature.

Something you can compare that behavior to is pressing a random "Permalink to section" link in my blog post, then pressing the back button. Firefox navigates to the section, then back where you were before. And it does that every single time.

I don't even know why GitHub even went and reimplemented URL fragments from scratch in JavaScript. The work has literally been done already, and it requires *no JavaScript*. Maybe they had some weird CSS that broke URL fragments, or maybe their header needed some scroll padding which the devs didn't learn about.

CSS scroll-padding

The Go to file button is broken

Clicking the "Go to file" button on the repository page will just send you to the file list. That's it. It's broken.

Sometimes can't even get the favicon theme right

This is probably a race condition bug, but sometimes the GitHub Favicon will just have horrible contrast because of the wrong theme of Favicon it is using.

Reference in new issue bypasses issue template

There was a case where a user bypassed the issue templates when they were not supposed to (the repo does not allow blank/custom issues, only structured templates).

A reply to the now discussion

Stop button isn't at thing and it's stupid

Did you know there's a button which stops the loading of the page? Yeah, that doesn't exist in GitHub, it exists in the web browser. So when I don't want to load a page (after I clicked on it by accident), I must fully load the page then go back, which is a waste of time.

They have good session resume, but I'd rather be prevented from refreshing

This is just a personal opinion. I'd like to get a prompt that says "hey are you sure you want to leave?" rather than suddenly close my tab, then thinking I potentially lost my very long comment. The reliability might be good, but personally, I probably didn't want to close the tab in the first place.

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