61–70 of 129 posts
I LOVE github, their little project forever changed the way I think about & write software, and their ideas (blogposts/presentations) about how to build software are truly a massive inspiration for me. PS: Would be awesome to see who has the oldest github account on here. I joined April 20 2008.
January 11, 2008. User id 4[1] :D [1]: https://api.github.com/users/wycats
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine linux back in an age before it was possible to search the web for answers to problems you run into. In an age when some of the most popular linux distros not only didn't have advanced install-on-demand internet based package management (e.g. debian) but may not have had any package management at all. Also in an age when plug-and-play was still more a theory than a reality and when hardware support in linux wa…
Oh, memories of installing Slackware Linux from floppies....
Github mainly succeeded because of the various shortcomings in Gits command line interface. Github made certain models of cooperative development incredibly easy, and since most or almost all of the open source development is just that the time was 100% ripe for something like github. Still, it is an incredible achievement and I hope that github will be around for a very long time to come. For a laugh: http://svnhub.…
Github would probably not have succeeded had git's command line interface been better? What rubbish. Github is a fantastic achievement. As aashaykumar92 says, making programming social and with a website that almost looks like it might be fun to normal people?? That's some achievement!
Indeed. Except that it's your words, not mine.
I wrote: "Github mainly succeeded because of the various shortcomings in Gits command line interface."
The message, which apparently needs to be spelled out is that using a repo through a command line is a hard thing to do for many developers nowadays who think the command line is something for people with long beards. By putting a friendly face - and a web based face no less - on a really nice open source distributed repository tool github did exactly that which you need to do to gain mass adoption:
Make something people need easy to use and do it in a way they can afford. Then iterate like crazy to dig out a defensible moat around the basic core.
Github blew the doors of the competition including some corporate heavyweights by capitalizing on Git and the trend of collaboration in software development. If they had had to develop git from scratch, if git would have come with a web based front end or if an established competitor (say sourceforge) would have adopted git earlier or (when git was still just for open source nerds and SVN, mercurial or some other repo system used more for corporate) they would have had a much harder time of it.
History happened the way it did for a reason and git being very powerful but somewhat harder to use gave github an opening that they used to create a spectacular success.
Opportunities arise all the time, how you make use of them is what matters and without git as it was there would be no github today.
But why would I rephrase what the git guys said so eloquently on their first homepage:
"git repository hosting no longer a pain in the ass"
And:
"GitHub is the easiest (and prettiest) way to participate in that collaboration: fork projects, send pull requests, monitor development, all with ease. "
http://web.archive.org/web/20080514210148/http://github.com/
Github is probably one of the biggest innovations in web since Google. Sourceforge was okay, but it felt clunky and inaccessible, not to mention it lacked really any kind of social aspect. Github brought source control to the mainstream and made open source cool again and made it felt like an actual social thing as opposed to single developers making commits without context to a repository. If it weren't for Github I…
> Github is probably one of the biggest innovations in web since Google. I love GitHub as much as the next guy, but 99% of Internet users neither know what git is, nor have any need of it. There are a little more than a million users. (EDIT: well no, there are now 3 million.[2]) By contrast, Google is used by over a billion people every month.[1] [1]: http://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/chart/899/unique-... [2…
Github is probably one of the biggest innovations in web since Google. Sourceforge was okay, but it felt clunky and inaccessible, not to mention it lacked really any kind of social aspect. Github brought source control to the mainstream and made open source cool again and made it felt like an actual social thing as opposed to single developers making commits without context to a repository. If it weren't for Github I…
> Github is probably one of the biggest innovations in web since Google. I love GitHub as much as the next guy, but 99% of Internet users neither know what git is, nor have any need of it. There are a little more than a million users. (EDIT: well no, there are now 3 million.[2]) By contrast, Google is used by over a billion people every month.[1] [1]: http://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/chart/899/unique-... [2…
Github is probably one of the biggest innovations in web since Google. Sourceforge was okay, but it felt clunky and inaccessible, not to mention it lacked really any kind of social aspect. Github brought source control to the mainstream and made open source cool again and made it felt like an actual social thing as opposed to single developers making commits without context to a repository. If it weren't for Github I…
> Github is probably one of the biggest innovations in web since Google. I love GitHub as much as the next guy, but 99% of Internet users neither know what git is, nor have any need of it. There are a little more than a million users. (EDIT: well no, there are now 3 million.[2]) By contrast, Google is used by over a billion people every month.[1] [1]: http://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/chart/899/unique-... [2…
Without Github, contributing to OSS would have been much harder for me (being a noncoder). Thank you for giving us a tool with tremendous leverage in many aspects, both technical and nontechnical.
In which ways do you contribute to OSS on github without being a coder? Through issues?
In the best case, you can simply reproduce it. Then say so in a comment to the issue. However more probable, you have to ask the reporter for more details or try different versions and environments.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Github is probably one of the biggest innovations in web since Google. I love GitHub as much as the next guy, but 99% of Internet users neither know what git is, nor have any need of it. There are a little more than a million users. (EDIT: well no, there are now 3 million.[2]) By contrast, Google is used by over a billion people every month.[1] [1]: http://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/chart/899/unique-... [2…
Innovations in infrastructure are usually unknown to most of the people using that infrastructure--until they fail. Think of what would happen if Github was down for a week: how many users would now have the name "Github" on their lips (probably with a negative connotation) after some web service they do use said "sorry, the fix on that showstopper bug has been delayed a bit; Github is down, you see."