Skip to content

VISION.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
70 lines (55 loc) · 5.91 KB

VISION.md

File metadata and controls

70 lines (55 loc) · 5.91 KB
Raw

Vision: the universe of open source

Others build a city of code. We build the universe it lives in, and you can zoom from the whole of open source down to a single line.

BENCHMARK.md shows where the bar is. This document is about going somewhere nobody has gone. The rule stays the one that got us here: every visual element carries real data. Imagination sets the form, and git history fills it with truth.

One zoom, seven scales

Scale Metaphor What it shows (real data)
Universe All of open source Every repo we know, clustered into galaxies
Galaxy An ecosystem (JavaScript, Rust, Python, AI…) Spiral arms are sub-ecosystems (frontend, tooling, ML). Galaxies ignite when an ecosystem is born (Node 2009, Rust 2015, the AI nebula of 2023)
Star system An owner or organisation The sun's brightness is the org's total stars; its planets are its repos
Planet A repository Size = code size. Atmosphere colour = main language. City lights on the night side = activity in the last 30 days, like Earth at night. Archived repos are frozen worlds. Forks are moons and colonies
Surface The city we already have Continents = top-level folders, districts = folders, buildings = files, all on a curved horizon
Building A file Floors = lines (the code elevator, already built)
Bedrock The file's history Geological strata: cut a core sample and every layer is the year its lines were written (git blame); click a layer to see its commit

The transitions between scales are the product. Picture diving from a galaxy into a solar system, landing through a planet's atmosphere, flying between towers, and riding an elevator into the code. It should be one continuous, cinematic camera move.

The universe runs on real events

In the universe In git / GitHub
A planet forming from dust The first commit
Continents rising, cities growing Code being written, per folder
Asteroid impact: a crater, then regrowth A massive refactor or deletion (thousands of lines removed in one commit)
Ruins Deleted files (already built: demolitions)
Rocket launch from the spaceport A release tag; the version number is painted on the rocket
Shuttles docking and waiting in orbit Open pull requests. Merge = landing and unloading, and the buildings grow
Storms over a district Open issues about that code; lightning for critical bugs
Red aurora Failing CI
The night sky on the planet Stargazers: one star per person who starred the repo. A repo with 200k stars has a Milky Way overhead; click a star to see who it is
Ships travelling between planets Contributors who work on several repos. The social graph becomes flight paths
Trade routes of light between planets Dependencies; traffic = downloads
Parallel universes Branches and forks. A branch is an alternate timeline: toggle a pull request to see a ghost version of the city with its changes. Merging collapses the timelines

Signature moments (each one a clip)

  1. Orbit to street in one move. Space → atmosphere (clouds, heat glow) → skyline → street → a building's facade → its code. No cuts.
  2. The Big Bang of open source. 2008 → today in 60 seconds, as galaxies ignite, planets form, and the AI nebula explodes in 2023. The flagship video.
  3. A planet's life. Dust → first commit → continents → cities → the great refactor asteroid → rebirth → today's city lights.
  4. Stargazer sky. Stand in a repo's city at night and see a sky made of the people who starred it.
  5. Release night. Scrub to a big release and a rocket launches from the spaceport.
  6. What-if timeline. Open a pull request and watch the city shimmer into its alternate version.
  7. Core sample. Drill into a file and pull out its geology, 2009 at the bottom and last week on top.

Modes

  • Explorer. Fly your own ship (your GitHub identity) through the universe; land anywhere.
  • Time machine. Scrub time at any scale: a file, a city, a galaxy, the universe.
  • Archaeologist. Strata, core samples, the commit behind every layer.
  • Constellations. Curated tours drawn as constellations across the sky, e.g. jQuery → Backbone → Angular → React → Vue → Svelte, narrated by the AI guide from verified sources.
  • Your universe. Your starred and contributed repos as a personal galaxy, with a share card.

Why this can work (and isn't just a pretty idea)

  • Nobody owns the full zoom. Map of GitHub has the map but no cities; code cities have a city but no world. The continuous zoom from the universe to one line of code is new.
  • The metaphors map cleanly onto the data. Stars are stargazers, branches are parallel timelines, releases are launches. Viewers can understand them in one look, with no legend needed.
  • Built-in growth loops. "Add your planet", the stargazer sky ("I'm a star in React's sky"), badges, personal galaxies.
  • The expensive work is already done. Honest history, meaningful lights, the code elevator and the Blender renderer all carry over unchanged. The surface of a planet is our city.

How to get there (each step ships something)

  1. Tiny planet. Wrap the existing city onto a small planet (curved horizon, the sea on the far side, atmosphere, the city lights seen from orbit), plus the orbit-to-street landing. It is a big visual differentiator for little new infrastructure.
  2. City world v1 (from BENCHMARK): streets with painted names, architecture by file type, rooftops.
  3. Star systems and galaxies v0: seeded from GitHub metadata (500–1000 repos, 50–100 prebaked planets), searchable, with fly-to and land.
  4. Events: asteroid refactors, release rockets, the stargazer sky.
  5. Ingest service: "add your planet", unexplored worlds built on first landing.
  6. The Big Bang video, then the AI guide and constellation tours.