I have most github-related emails delivered to a separate folder. Only since Jan 30 2015 there are a staggering number of messages there - 25113. Just going through them all would be a full-time job that wouldn't allow me to do anything else.

However, it turns out some of these are blocked in wait of my input. Some of you learned to kindly send me email when that happens. That works very well, but not everybody knows that.

I also have a saved search https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pulls/mentioned/andralex that shows me all Phobos PRs that mention my handle. I visit that once in a while.

I'm sure there must be better techniques. How do you keep up with github?


Andrei

On Wednesday, 13 January 2016 at 14:01:01 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I have most github-related emails delivered to a separate folder. Only since Jan 30 2015 there are a staggering number of messages there - 25113. Just going through them all would be a full-time job that wouldn't allow me to do anything else.
>
> However, it turns out some of these are blocked in wait of my input. Some of you learned to kindly send me email when that happens. That works very well, but not everybody knows that.
>
> I also have a saved search https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pulls/mentioned/andralex that shows me all Phobos PRs that mention my handle. I visit that once in a while.
>
> I'm sure there must be better techniques. How do you keep up with github?

I'm guessing you're subscribed to all D-Programming-Language repos? You probably want to unsubscribe from (un-watch) all of them. Someone trying to reach you personally in a thread is not on the same level of importance as someone bikeshedding in some low-importance bikeshed PR, but both notifications would be delivered in the same way.

If you want to track all GitHub activity, there are other ways to do it (e.g. Atom feeds).

On Wednesday, 13 January 2016 at 14:01:01 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I have most github-related emails delivered to a separate folder. Only since Jan 30 2015 there are a staggering number of messages there - 25113. Just going through them all would be a full-time job that wouldn't allow me to do anything else.
>
> However, it turns out some of these are blocked in wait of my input. Some of you learned to kindly send me email when that happens. That works very well, but not everybody knows that.
>
> I also have a saved search https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pulls/mentioned/andralex that shows me all Phobos PRs that mention my handle. I visit that once in a while.
>
> I'm sure there must be better techniques. How do you keep up with github?

Methodology I have came to at work looks roughly like this:

1) Unsubscribe from all notifications apart from those repositories few you must process immediately (in case of D-Programming-Language this means "unsubscribe from all")

2) Use GitHub assignments and labels to sort and search through pull requests in a systematic manner according to own plan

3) When someone mentions @andralex directly, notificiation will still arrive and you can check those at higher priority.

On Wednesday, 13 January 2016 at 14:01:01 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I also have a saved search https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pulls/mentioned/andralex that shows me all Phobos PRs that mention my handle. I visit that once in a while.

That's also a good idea though I'd say don't revisit the search, get emails for those so you can get more timely notifications and not look at the same thing twice.

Github's notification settings suck. I'd do the filter in a custom client-side program...

I think if you focus your attention on @mentions and new PRs opened, while filtering the rest, you should be able to get that down to size. You might be interested in merges too.

Then handle the rest with a more efficient client!


> Only since Jan 30 2015 there are a staggering number of messages there - 25113.

I handle over 50,000 emails a year (this includes all D forum posts btw). I don't necessarily read or reply to all of them, but I do look at all of them.

I achieve this by using a hotkey-driven local mail client (a slightly customized mutt - http://www.mutt.org/ ) with a custom incoming email processor. I just *read* two forum post emails in under ten seconds. In aggregate, I spend about 10% of my work hours on email. That's a lot, but it isn't unmanageable.


You might actually be able to do the same if you wanted to set up a local client. Set it so the messages are displayed without need for click and scroll, then train your brain to instantly recognize if you care or not and hit the d key to delete and move straight ahead to the next one.

When there's a recurring pattern, you can modify your processor to handle it differently, from forwarding to a text message if really important, to beeping locally, to auto-deleting.

Once you start writing your own programs running on your own computer instead of limiting yourself to some crappy web interface's ajax garbage and idiotic notification settings, the world becomes a much nicer place!

On Wednesday, 13 January 2016 at 14:01:01 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I'm sure there must be better techniques. How do you keep up with github?
>
>
> Andrei

My methodology is simple: disable the emails. Github's notifications page is suitable for  giving a 10,000ft of what's going on. If there are any discussions I don't care about or I have no opinion on, I silence them individually from the same page. This cuts down on the number of discussions while letting me see the ones I care about when I want to see them because new comments on threads I already have unread messages on don't generate extra messages.

Also, any thread that I silence will still show up if my name is mentioned.

On 01/13/2016 10:04 AM, Dicebot wrote:
> 2) Use GitHub assignments and labels to sort and search through pull
> requests in a systematic manner according to own plan

I just added a label "@andralex" to phobos as an experiment. Consider it a batsignal to be used when my input is waited for on anything. -- Andrei

On Thursday, 14 January 2016 at 20:47:30 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 01/13/2016 10:04 AM, Dicebot wrote:
>> 2) Use GitHub assignments and labels to sort and search through pull
>> requests in a systematic manner according to own plan
>
> I just added a label "@andralex" to phobos as an experiment. Consider it a batsignal to be used when my input is waited for on anything. -- Andrei

When I was still part of Phobos maintainer team I have added "decision block" label for similar purpose (PR that can't move forward without your/Walter decision or approval). I see that it is still at least occasionally used : https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/labels/decision%20block

It probably makes sense to reassign all PR's with that label to new "@andralex" and delete "decision block" to avoid accumulating label garbage ;)

On Wednesday, 13 January 2016 at 14:01:01 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I have most github-related emails delivered to a separate folder. Only since Jan 30 2015 there are a staggering number of messages there - 25113. Just going through them all would be a full-time job that wouldn't allow me to do anything else.
>
> However, it turns out some of these are blocked in wait of my input. Some of you learned to kindly send me email when that happens. That works very well, but not everybody knows that.
>
> I also have a saved search https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pulls/mentioned/andralex that shows me all Phobos PRs that mention my handle. I visit that once in a while.
>
> I'm sure there must be better techniques. How do you keep up with github?
>
>
> Andrei

The bots Rust uses might be of some use: http://huonw.github.io/blog/2015/03/rust-infrastructure-can-be-your-infrastructure/.

On 1/13/16 9:01 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> I'm sure there must be better techniques. How do you keep up with github?

All my github email goes into a specific folder.

My email client organizes by thread, so while there may be 100 messages some days, there's generally a far fewer number of threads (some particularly active threads have dozens of messages in them). I'll note I'm only subscribed to Phobos, Druntime, and Deimos.

I also have a special "overriding" filter that sends messages directly to my inbox if @schveiguy is seen in the message. This allows someone to tag me and it will get my attention much quicker (I check my inbox when it alerts me, but the github folder I sometimes let go for several days at a time). I found that in the past, these got buried in the github folder and I didn't notice them.

-Steve