4 ms·

That's a fully adequate description of Github to a lay audience.

• OJFord 11y ago
  Really? I would prefer 'code-sharing service' even if the point is to emphasise the sharing over the version control - makes it clear that we're talking about the program code, not about distributing binaries. The lay audience understands the "code"/"program" distinction; to me, saying "program-sharing service" suggests somewhere the layman can download a program from (e.g. cnet) - Github sort of offers this now with releases, but that's certainly not an intended or good mechanism to use for the lay downloader.
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    > The lay audience understands the "code"/"program" distinction In my experience, professional business people with a day to day involvement as business SMEs on IT projects are quite likely not to really make the distinction you insist the "lay audience" understands, and I doubt very much that the general lay audience, with even less awareness of computing, does.
    • OJFord 11y ago
      Sure they do. They think we all look like characters straight out of _Hackers_, writing funny glyphs and doing crazy things really fast - and they know sure as hell the programs they end up using don't look like that. I guess what I'm driving at is that if you told my little brother that "Github is a program-sharing service" he'd think be thinking it was an app store.