GitHut: A visualization about GitHub statistics.

GitHub is the most widely used source code management and version control tool available on the web. With its increasing user base and code repositories, GitHub repository can help in identify trending programming languages. This trend has been captured by a project called GitHut by combining repository statistics and Git specific trends on programming language.

What I liked –

• The active repositories chart gives a quick overview of the growth in the number of active repositories over time. The intent of the visualization is not to analyze the growth in repositories, but to give the user a detailed picture of which programming languages are contributing towards this growth. This chart, even though, placed right at the top does not sway the user’s attention too much because it’s sized-down, when compared to the repository language chart.
• The repository language chart displays a wide range of information in a very easy to analyze manner. The wide range of parameters being analyzed, such as active repositories, number of pushes and forks, year first publishes, and open issues, can be easily tracked for each programming language by mouse-hover functionality over the language. This tracking works by mouse-hover over any of the data points, making it easy to track based on the parameter most useful for analysis. We can also compare multiple languages by selecting them with mouse-click. This functionality will highlight all the data points for the selected languages to be compared.
• The top active languages chart section consists of 50 charts. This section can be analyzed based on percentages or total value, which is a good way of allowing users to compare statistics. Also, the scales for the 49 charts are dynamic i.e. when the user brings the mouse over the chart, the scales are shown. This helps in keeping the entire visualization clean.

What could have been done differently –

• The top active languages section displays a separate chart for each programming language. Since the time scale under consideration (Q2/12 to Q4/14) and the repositories scale (1K to 100K) are same, I think a single chart with a filter would have sufficed. The following are the advantages by doing this:
  1. The author could have saved space.
  2. Eliminated the need for the user to scroll up/down.
  3. Given the ability to compare two, or more, languages based on active repositories.

References:

http://githut.info/