12 ms·

Github turns five

360 points by trustfundbaby 14y ago

lanna 14y ago
Say what you want about Git, GitHub is awesome.
- benatkin 14y ago
  Say what you want about GitHub, Git is awesome. (Not sure why we're comparing them but I'll throw in my opposing opinion. I actually like both but Git itself is much more important to me than GitHub.)
  - m_mueller 14y ago
    Honest question: If it's not for GitHub's community features that get enabled through git's decentralized repository, what does git do for you more than a local SVN server?
    - zachlatta 14y ago
      For one, decentralized version control.
    - trustfundbaby 14y ago
      the spectacular ease of creating and merging branches is a huge one.
    - Schwolop 14y ago
      I used to use SVN. We built control software for robots. We'd take the robots away on a field trial - no internet access - fix some bugs, write some code, add some features. That's five to ten people, all writing code that interacts with each other's, all without any access to the SVN server. You can imagine the copy-pasta that went on. The amount of "oh fuck, I just rebuilt-all without Dave's changes". The amount of "Bags not merging this shit." Then we'd get back to work after a weekend and have to merge all our independent branches. That could take a day or two on its own. Sometimes, sitting with five people's laptops in front of you and using the human brain's visual diff was more efficient than trying to do it properly. --- Now, with git, we push and pull wherever the hell we like as needed. Everyone's laptop is equivalent to the server. When we get back, everyone merges their stuff into staging, all the cross-dependencies get magically resolved, we test it, and merge that into master. It takes about fifteen minutes. (Actually, I don't work there any more, but the conclusion works better in the present tense.)
      - m_mueller 14y ago
        Thanks, that's an interesting example. Yes, I can absolutely see that for truly collaborative projects where multiple programming tasks over the same code portions run in parallel, git becomes a real time saver. I just haven't run into such a project yet myself.
    - jlarocco 14y ago
      The fact that Git can be used without a server is a big benefit. Being able to do "git init" in any directory and start versioning files is pretty nice. And Git handles branching and merging better than Subversion.
    - jmathai 14y ago
      Honest response: If you're coming from a Subversion background (like I did) then wrapping your head around the possibilities of git takes a long time. You almost have to unlearn everything you knew about version control. If you're not frequently using local branches, your stash, `git add --patch`, git bisect or git rebase then you're really missing out. Everyone's git workflow is different which makes it even harder to get up to speed since you read about 10 ways to accomplish the same task. You might not use ALL the features of git but once you master a subset of them you'll find that your workflow is unlike anything you could have done with Subversion.
      - marssaxman 14y ago
        Wrapping your head around git takes a long time regardless of your background, because git's interface is incoherent and requires you to understand internal details of its implementation to a degree I haven't seen in a commonly used dev tool since the '80s.
        jlgreco 14y ago
        I don't think this is really true. Sure, you have to learn the (absurdly simple) model that git uses behind the scenes, but after you do that, who really cares about the standard CLI interface? That interface sucks in the same way a dashboard might suck on an all-terrian vehicle. Sure it looks like shit, all the knobs are in the wrong place and don't turn in consistent ways, and that analog clock seems really out of place in a car... but who really cares? It doesn't impede actual use. Those "internal details of its implementation" are in fact what git actually is. "Learning git" without learning that stuff is not in fact learning git.
        marssaxman 14y ago
        I agree with you, basically, but that is the substance of my complaint. Git leaves all of its messy internal bits exposed and does not provide a clean abstraction layer in its interface. Many people have written such abstraction layers, but they tend to be incomplete, and none of them is a standard. Everyone who wants to use git - which includes everyone who wants to merely collaborate with other people who use git - therefore has to learn git's internal implementation details. It's one thing to learn the internal implementation details when you are a power user who really cares about a particular tool and wants to master it: it's another thing to require everyone to gain low-level familiarity. The whole point of a computer - indeed, the whole point of computing, if you look at it through a lambda-calculus lens - is to provide abstractions over lower-level details, thereby allowing human brains to spend less time worrying about those details and more time manipulating higher-level abstract concepts. In failing to offer a high-level interface, git wastes human brainpower which could otherwise be spent solving actual problems. You don't need to know what an AST or a symbol table or an intermediate representation are to use gcc; you don't need to understand static single-assignment form, linker relocation entries, or ELF segments. You can use the tool without any knowledge of its internal mechanisms. This is not true of Git, and that is why I hope it can be improved or replaced with something that has more respect for human brain power.
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      > what does git do for you more than a local SVN server? It does less than a local SVN server, there is no server. Git is peer-to-peer, which is a huge advantage. Because it is decentralized you can access your whole repo and its history while off-line. That and easy branching are the main selling points of Git though over time you discover more and more ways in which Git is subtly superior. If I could start over again on my main repo I'd do it in Git but I already have all my files dating back a long time in an svn repository so the cost of transiting is huge. (it is a very large repository). But anything new is stored in Git. Maybe one day I'll work up the courage to do a proper transition.
      - sergiosgc 14y ago
        git-svn does it perfectly. We use it to track OSS projects that use SVN (we use git internally). So far, it has proven to be very reliable.
    - ksherlock 14y ago
      I prefer git because it stays out of your way. No more .svn garbage littering every folder. No more "mother may I?" before deleting or moving files. And no more URLs when branching and merging.
- beefsack 14y ago
  I haven't heard too many people say bad things about Git.
  - m_mueller 14y ago
    Git's technology is awesome, but are you happy with its CLI?
  - ianstormtaylor 14y ago
    The CLI for Git could use a lot of design help.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    Git is like linux in... 1996 maybe. The underlying technology is pretty awesome, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of usability. Git is enormously powerful, but it has some key weak spots that can lead to intense frustration, and it doesn't exactly guide users into using it in the best way possible.
    - mserdarsanli 14y ago
      I'm to young to know about linux in 1996, but linux in 2013 also seems to fit what you describe.
      - InclinedPlane 14y ago
        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 was a cruel joke. Add to that a dizzying array of competing distros and hardware so slow it usually took hours to do a kernel compile. It was a frustrating time for computing in general and deciding to try using linux was a fairly daring venture certain to result in hours upon hours of frustration.
trustfundbaby 14y ago
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.
- icambron 14y ago
  See here for the list of early accounts: https://api.github.com/users https://api.github.com/users
- uggedal 14y ago
  A contribution to https://github.com/defunkt/mofo https://github.com/defunkt/mofo got me #71 on January 27, 2008 (https://api.github.com/users/uggedal https://api.github.com/users/uggedal).
- highwind 14y ago
  Mar 05, 2008
  - lukeholder 14y ago
    Sep 30, 2009 :(
- hox 14y ago
  http://caius.github.io/github_id/ http://caius.github.io/github_id/ Doesn't show join date, but user IDs are auto-incrementing.
- jeremymcanally 14y ago
  January 29, 2008. User id 95. :)
  - eridius 14y ago
    95? Wow. I joined almost a month later (Feb 23, 2008) and got #714.
Paul_D_Santana 14y ago
How did you learn Github?
- shurcooL 14y ago
  For me, it was this: http://try.github.com/ http://try.github.com/ I've been on the verge wanting to learn Git and GitHub for a long time, but that was what pushed me over the edge.
  - Paul_D_Santana 14y ago
    Looks great. Thanks for the link!
andyl 14y ago
Git and GitHub have both made monstrous contributions to the software development landscape. I've acquired incredible new powers, for free! What other power-tools are on the horizon? What's next?
aashaykumar92 14y ago
Congrats on 5 years to Github! They are true pioneers for creating a social network for programmers, and not limiting it to just experienced programmers. I barely knew how to program but I was suggested to try Github with the little HTML/CSS/JS I knew and it is been my favorite, not to mention most effective, way to practice to become a better programmer. Collaborating with fellow hackers on projects is more fun than I ever imagined. They have actually found a way to make programming a social and fun experience! The beauty of Github is that it attends to programmers of all experience levels, so I really don't see myself straying away from it even as I become a better programmer. Here's to hopefully more than another 5 years! As an afterword, I guess the big question is: What comes after this? What will make Github irrelevant?
- amorphid 14y ago
  GitHub rocks. I would only switch for the yet to be invented GitGrub. If you'll request is accepted, you get a free burrito.
  - leahculver 14y ago
    GrubHub! My favorite Hub. GitHub is second. Though if they partnered...
- IanCal 14y ago
  "What will make Github irrelevant?" A stable github? Edit - this was somewhat flippant, and they do a great job, but when it breaks it can stop me from doing what I need to do next.
  - spmurrayzzz 14y ago
    It can stop you, but odds are it doesn't in many cases. IMO this is one of the biggest benefits of git over something like Subversion or CVS: its distributed, so you can continue to work locally while the origin is unreachable. I can't tell you how many times in my svn past where I couldn't get any work done simply as a result of the repo sever going down or having some other issue affecting its reachability. At least with git I may not be able to pull commits from origin, but I can still commit locally which is typically enough to keep me productive during outage periods.
hkmurakami 14y ago
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.
- fudged71 14y ago
  In which ways do you contribute to OSS on github without being a coder? Through issues?
  - rohitnair 14y ago
    From his website, "In my spare time, I contribute to the open source Fluentd Project's documentation." In fact, you probably don't even need to understand Git, since pretty much everything can be done via the browser now. Clicking on the "Edit" button on README/documentation pages automatically forks the repo and makes it trivial to submit patches.
    - hkmurakami 14y ago
      Yup :) I'm involved with the docs. While it's true that everything can be done in the browser, "saving = committing" there so I prefer to use the terminal and emacs.
  - qznc 14y ago
    Probably the biggest contribution a non-coder could do is bug-triaging, which means: Look into newly reported issues and try to reproduce them and check for duplicate 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.
    - hkmurakami 14y ago
      I've been meaning to do this with Firefox but haven't been able to get around to it :(
jval 14y ago
Amazing work github! Now get those sticker packs back in the store so I can buy a few and stick them everywhere :P
ekpqwekqp 14y ago
Please explain to me how GitHub is anything other than a communist ploy for black men to steal our white women? I know it sounds slightly far-fetched, but hear me out. With centralized systems like SVN, open source has standards: white people control access, and can ensure no inferior negro code makes it into projects. With GitHub, anyone can fork anything! There aren't even any racial restrictions. For some reason people think this is a good idea?
jthomp 14y ago
Happy Birthday, GitHub! I use it every day to collaborate with fellow hackers that don't live anywhere close to me. It's indispensable for me. Here's to 5 more years!
joeblau 14y ago
Happy Birthday. Project is awesome and so are the people.
Achshar 14y ago
It's just been five years? It feels like I have been reading about it forever. Never got to use it because of limited private repos.
xguox 14y ago
the same birthday for Meteor(http://meteor.com/ http://meteor.com/)
jacquesm 14y ago
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.com/ http://svnhub.com/
- mmahemoff 14y ago
  Git's quirks were surely a catalyst, especially helping the company to build momentum as Git grew. But Github added a lot more value than just that. I mean SourceForge was basically from the CVS + SVN era, and those tools were simpler and more intuitive, but SourceForge still served a great need. I'd say GitHub mainly succeeded because it put code first and overall focused on a great experience for developers to contribute and collaborate. SourceForge, in contrast, was heavily influenced by consumers wanting to download the latest version of FileZilla or some Linux games. And Google Code, for the brief time it was the main event, took things too far the other direction from SF. It was just too terse and the design too raw, as was customary for Google back then. It actually had the basis for a lot of the critical functionality, but lacked the kind of design flair GitHub has shown. I don't think it was ever seen as a potential profit center, so always seemed starved of the resources to compete with GitHub.
- Myrmornis 14y ago
  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!
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > Github would probably not have succeeded had git's command line interface been better? What rubbish. 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/ http://web.archive.org/web/20080514210148/http://github.com/
simonista 14y ago
Wow, I had no idea Github had 158 employees. I guess I mostly hear about their engineering team here on HN, and didn't realize the rest of the team was that big. Congrats on 5 years guys, it's a great service!
DigitalSea 14y ago
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 probably would never have open sourced the amount of work that I have done since its inception nor contributed to the amount of projects I've committed too.
- veidr 14y ago
  > 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-users-of-search-engines-in-december-2012/ http://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/chart/899/unique-... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub
  - DigitalSea 14y ago
    I didn't mean in terms of numbers. Of course more people use Google, but lets not underestimate the impact Github has had and will continue to have. If you're a developer, Github has essentially become a requirement to have, it's a developers resume. If it weren't for Github the numerous open source contributions I've made as well as projects I've open sourced myself wouldn't have come to fruition, and while my contributions are small in the greater scheme of things, you never know, one commit might make all the difference between a good web application and a great web application.
    - recursive 14y ago
      > it's a developers resume I keep hearing this on places like HN, yet when I've been applying to software jobs in the real world lately, there's been barely a mention of it.
pom 14y ago
It’s also my Github birthday, as I joined on April 11th, 2011!
malkia 14y ago
Hub Hub Hurrray Gitters!
xiaoma 14y ago
Yay! BTW, I live in SF and I REALLY want one of those octo-nyan-cat stickers for my laptop. Just sayin...
x-sam 14y ago
Happy birthday Github! You are rocking opensource. It's just amazing so easily be able to fix some software, to make some commitments into project you do love! But, 6 million repositories for 3.5 million users? Really? How many bots do you have? I'm not sure, that general user has 1.7 repository. I thought the number is higher, at least 3 or something. How many repositories do you have with forks?
nicholassmith 14y ago
Hard to imagine a world without GitHub now, it's become that pervasive. Great service, great people there. Hopefully we'll be saying happy birthday in another 5 years with even more people using it for open source projects.
- ukandy 14y ago
  GitHub really become the standard for open source projects in such a short space of time, even the big name projects felt compelled to switch. Congrats GitHub.
remi 14y ago
Moderators edit titles all the time but now it’s been 7 hours and no one still has corrected "Github" to "GitHub"?
kmfrk 14y ago
What I really love about GitHub is that it's one of the really exciting companies that has never really disappointed nor sold out like Twitter did. I'm as excited about GitHub as ever.
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  > What I really love about GitHub is that it's one of the really exciting companies that has never really disappointed nor sold out like Twitter did. To be completely fair to Twitter, it's been less than a year since Github raised their first round of funding ($100MM). Twitter has raised $1.6 billion over the last seven years. It's a lot easier not to sell out when your investors aren't pressuring you to pull a profit yet. (Also remember that almost all of Github's funding comes from a single investor). I like Github, but it's a bit premature to say that they've "never sold out".
  - kmfrk 14y ago
    That just means that GitHub were much quicker to find a profitable business model than Twitter, though. :)
martinced 14y ago
Congratulations and thank you Linus. Thank you so much. As Linus said (paraphrasing): "I realized that in two weeks I could code something better than any single VCS out there". Linus' kind of passion and hatred towards mediocrity (CVS and SVN) is a kind of attitude we need more. Not from everybody but from the true creators. Linus is one of these "unreasonable man" upon which progress depends on. Long life Linus and long life is "vocal" point of views.
prezjordan 14y ago
Github is the reason I have an awesome internship this summer. Thanks :)
igorgue 14y ago
I joined on April 12 2008 [1], I wonder what's my user id :) [1] https://github.com/igorgue https://github.com/igorgue
- jbarnette 14y ago
  It's in the early 7000's.
- 3pt14159 14y ago
  It is 7014.
WalterBright 14y ago
Github has been a great boon to the D programming language community https://github.com/d-programming-language https://github.com/d-programming-language . There's been a very obvious 'before' and 'after' we moved to github.
- cpeterso 14y ago
  Was the improvement from increased visibility for the project or from changes in the development process using GitHub?
  - WalterBright 14y ago
    Both. What also improved enormously was participation by people who previously thought it too clumsy to. Github brought an organized, easy method of contributing. It was like night and day. Switching to github was probably the best organizational decision we made. From a business standpoint, I've also found that github's severs are fast and reliable, and the turnaround for tech support questions is fast and accurate. I'm very impressed with github.

Github turns five

360 points by trustfundbaby 14y ago

lanna 14y ago

Say what you want about Git, GitHub is awesome.

benatkin 14y ago
Say what you want about GitHub, Git is awesome. (Not sure why we're comparing them but I'll throw in my opposing opinion. I actually like both but Git itself is much more important to me than GitHub.)
- m_mueller 14y ago
  Honest question: If it's not for GitHub's community features that get enabled through git's decentralized repository, what does git do for you more than a local SVN server?
  - zachlatta 14y ago
    For one, decentralized version control.
  - trustfundbaby 14y ago
    the spectacular ease of creating and merging branches is a huge one.
  - Schwolop 14y ago
    I used to use SVN. We built control software for robots. We'd take the robots away on a field trial - no internet access - fix some bugs, write some code, add some features. That's five to ten people, all writing code that interacts with each other's, all without any access to the SVN server. You can imagine the copy-pasta that went on. The amount of "oh fuck, I just rebuilt-all without Dave's changes". The amount of "Bags not merging this shit." Then we'd get back to work after a weekend and have to merge all our independent branches. That could take a day or two on its own. Sometimes, sitting with five people's laptops in front of you and using the human brain's visual diff was more efficient than trying to do it properly. --- Now, with git, we push and pull wherever the hell we like as needed. Everyone's laptop is equivalent to the server. When we get back, everyone merges their stuff into staging, all the cross-dependencies get magically resolved, we test it, and merge that into master. It takes about fifteen minutes. (Actually, I don't work there any more, but the conclusion works better in the present tense.)
    - m_mueller 14y ago
      Thanks, that's an interesting example. Yes, I can absolutely see that for truly collaborative projects where multiple programming tasks over the same code portions run in parallel, git becomes a real time saver. I just haven't run into such a project yet myself.
  - jlarocco 14y ago
    The fact that Git can be used without a server is a big benefit. Being able to do "git init" in any directory and start versioning files is pretty nice. And Git handles branching and merging better than Subversion.
  - jmathai 14y ago
    Honest response: If you're coming from a Subversion background (like I did) then wrapping your head around the possibilities of git takes a long time. You almost have to unlearn everything you knew about version control. If you're not frequently using local branches, your stash, `git add --patch`, git bisect or git rebase then you're really missing out. Everyone's git workflow is different which makes it even harder to get up to speed since you read about 10 ways to accomplish the same task. You might not use ALL the features of git but once you master a subset of them you'll find that your workflow is unlike anything you could have done with Subversion.
    - marssaxman 14y ago
      Wrapping your head around git takes a long time regardless of your background, because git's interface is incoherent and requires you to understand internal details of its implementation to a degree I haven't seen in a commonly used dev tool since the '80s.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        I don't think this is really true. Sure, you have to learn the (absurdly simple) model that git uses behind the scenes, but after you do that, who really cares about the standard CLI interface? That interface sucks in the same way a dashboard might suck on an all-terrian vehicle. Sure it looks like shit, all the knobs are in the wrong place and don't turn in consistent ways, and that analog clock seems really out of place in a car... but who really cares? It doesn't impede actual use. Those "internal details of its implementation" are in fact what git actually is. "Learning git" without learning that stuff is not in fact learning git.
        marssaxman 14y ago
        I agree with you, basically, but that is the substance of my complaint. Git leaves all of its messy internal bits exposed and does not provide a clean abstraction layer in its interface. Many people have written such abstraction layers, but they tend to be incomplete, and none of them is a standard. Everyone who wants to use git - which includes everyone who wants to merely collaborate with other people who use git - therefore has to learn git's internal implementation details. It's one thing to learn the internal implementation details when you are a power user who really cares about a particular tool and wants to master it: it's another thing to require everyone to gain low-level familiarity. The whole point of a computer - indeed, the whole point of computing, if you look at it through a lambda-calculus lens - is to provide abstractions over lower-level details, thereby allowing human brains to spend less time worrying about those details and more time manipulating higher-level abstract concepts. In failing to offer a high-level interface, git wastes human brainpower which could otherwise be spent solving actual problems. You don't need to know what an AST or a symbol table or an intermediate representation are to use gcc; you don't need to understand static single-assignment form, linker relocation entries, or ELF segments. You can use the tool without any knowledge of its internal mechanisms. This is not true of Git, and that is why I hope it can be improved or replaced with something that has more respect for human brain power.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > what does git do for you more than a local SVN server? It does less than a local SVN server, there is no server. Git is peer-to-peer, which is a huge advantage. Because it is decentralized you can access your whole repo and its history while off-line. That and easy branching are the main selling points of Git though over time you discover more and more ways in which Git is subtly superior. If I could start over again on my main repo I'd do it in Git but I already have all my files dating back a long time in an svn repository so the cost of transiting is huge. (it is a very large repository). But anything new is stored in Git. Maybe one day I'll work up the courage to do a proper transition.
    - sergiosgc 14y ago
      git-svn does it perfectly. We use it to track OSS projects that use SVN (we use git internally). So far, it has proven to be very reliable.
  - ksherlock 14y ago
    I prefer git because it stays out of your way. No more .svn garbage littering every folder. No more "mother may I?" before deleting or moving files. And no more URLs when branching and merging.
beefsack 14y ago
I haven't heard too many people say bad things about Git.
- m_mueller 14y ago
  Git's technology is awesome, but are you happy with its CLI?
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  The CLI for Git could use a lot of design help.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Git is like linux in... 1996 maybe. The underlying technology is pretty awesome, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of usability. Git is enormously powerful, but it has some key weak spots that can lead to intense frustration, and it doesn't exactly guide users into using it in the best way possible.
  - mserdarsanli 14y ago
    I'm to young to know about linux in 1996, but linux in 2013 also seems to fit what you describe.
    - InclinedPlane 14y ago
      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 was a cruel joke. Add to that a dizzying array of competing distros and hardware so slow it usually took hours to do a kernel compile. It was a frustrating time for computing in general and deciding to try using linux was a fairly daring venture certain to result in hours upon hours of frustration.

trustfundbaby 14y ago

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.

icambron 14y ago
See here for the list of early accounts: https://api.github.com/users https://api.github.com/users
uggedal 14y ago
A contribution to https://github.com/defunkt/mofo https://github.com/defunkt/mofo got me #71 on January 27, 2008 (https://api.github.com/users/uggedal https://api.github.com/users/uggedal).
highwind 14y ago
Mar 05, 2008
- lukeholder 14y ago
  Sep 30, 2009 :(
hox 14y ago
http://caius.github.io/github_id/ http://caius.github.io/github_id/ Doesn't show join date, but user IDs are auto-incrementing.
jeremymcanally 14y ago
January 29, 2008. User id 95. :)
- eridius 14y ago
  95? Wow. I joined almost a month later (Feb 23, 2008) and got #714.

Paul_D_Santana 14y ago

How did you learn Github?

shurcooL 14y ago
For me, it was this: http://try.github.com/ http://try.github.com/ I've been on the verge wanting to learn Git and GitHub for a long time, but that was what pushed me over the edge.
- Paul_D_Santana 14y ago
  Looks great. Thanks for the link!

andyl 14y ago

Git and GitHub have both made monstrous contributions to the software development landscape. I've acquired incredible new powers, for free! What other power-tools are on the horizon? What's next?

aashaykumar92 14y ago

Congrats on 5 years to Github! They are true pioneers for creating a social network for programmers, and not limiting it to just experienced programmers. I barely knew how to program but I was suggested to try Github with the little HTML/CSS/JS I knew and it is been my favorite, not to mention most effective, way to practice to become a better programmer. Collaborating with fellow hackers on projects is more fun than I ever imagined. They have actually found a way to make programming a social and fun experience! The beauty of Github is that it attends to programmers of all experience levels, so I really don't see myself straying away from it even as I become a better programmer. Here's to hopefully more than another 5 years! As an afterword, I guess the big question is: What comes after this? What will make Github irrelevant?

amorphid 14y ago
GitHub rocks. I would only switch for the yet to be invented GitGrub. If you'll request is accepted, you get a free burrito.
- leahculver 14y ago
  GrubHub! My favorite Hub. GitHub is second. Though if they partnered...
IanCal 14y ago
"What will make Github irrelevant?" A stable github? Edit - this was somewhat flippant, and they do a great job, but when it breaks it can stop me from doing what I need to do next.
- spmurrayzzz 14y ago
  It can stop you, but odds are it doesn't in many cases. IMO this is one of the biggest benefits of git over something like Subversion or CVS: its distributed, so you can continue to work locally while the origin is unreachable. I can't tell you how many times in my svn past where I couldn't get any work done simply as a result of the repo sever going down or having some other issue affecting its reachability. At least with git I may not be able to pull commits from origin, but I can still commit locally which is typically enough to keep me productive during outage periods.

hkmurakami 14y ago

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.

fudged71 14y ago
In which ways do you contribute to OSS on github without being a coder? Through issues?
- rohitnair 14y ago
  From his website, "In my spare time, I contribute to the open source Fluentd Project's documentation." In fact, you probably don't even need to understand Git, since pretty much everything can be done via the browser now. Clicking on the "Edit" button on README/documentation pages automatically forks the repo and makes it trivial to submit patches.
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    Yup :) I'm involved with the docs. While it's true that everything can be done in the browser, "saving = committing" there so I prefer to use the terminal and emacs.
- qznc 14y ago
  Probably the biggest contribution a non-coder could do is bug-triaging, which means: Look into newly reported issues and try to reproduce them and check for duplicate 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.
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    I've been meaning to do this with Firefox but haven't been able to get around to it :(

jval 14y ago

Amazing work github! Now get those sticker packs back in the store so I can buy a few and stick them everywhere :P

ekpqwekqp 14y ago

Please explain to me how GitHub is anything other than a communist ploy for black men to steal our white women? I know it sounds slightly far-fetched, but hear me out. With centralized systems like SVN, open source has standards: white people control access, and can ensure no inferior negro code makes it into projects. With GitHub, anyone can fork anything! There aren't even any racial restrictions. For some reason people think this is a good idea?

jthomp 14y ago

Happy Birthday, GitHub! I use it every day to collaborate with fellow hackers that don't live anywhere close to me. It's indispensable for me. Here's to 5 more years!

joeblau 14y ago

Happy Birthday. Project is awesome and so are the people.

Achshar 14y ago

It's just been five years? It feels like I have been reading about it forever. Never got to use it because of limited private repos.

xguox 14y ago

the same birthday for Meteor(http://meteor.com/ http://meteor.com/)

jacquesm 14y ago

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.com/ http://svnhub.com/

mmahemoff 14y ago
Git's quirks were surely a catalyst, especially helping the company to build momentum as Git grew. But Github added a lot more value than just that. I mean SourceForge was basically from the CVS + SVN era, and those tools were simpler and more intuitive, but SourceForge still served a great need. I'd say GitHub mainly succeeded because it put code first and overall focused on a great experience for developers to contribute and collaborate. SourceForge, in contrast, was heavily influenced by consumers wanting to download the latest version of FileZilla or some Linux games. And Google Code, for the brief time it was the main event, took things too far the other direction from SF. It was just too terse and the design too raw, as was customary for Google back then. It actually had the basis for a lot of the critical functionality, but lacked the kind of design flair GitHub has shown. I don't think it was ever seen as a potential profit center, so always seemed starved of the resources to compete with GitHub.
Myrmornis 14y ago
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!
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > Github would probably not have succeeded had git's command line interface been better? What rubbish. 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/ http://web.archive.org/web/20080514210148/http://github.com/

simonista 14y ago

Wow, I had no idea Github had 158 employees. I guess I mostly hear about their engineering team here on HN, and didn't realize the rest of the team was that big. Congrats on 5 years guys, it's a great service!

DigitalSea 14y ago

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 probably would never have open sourced the amount of work that I have done since its inception nor contributed to the amount of projects I've committed too.

veidr 14y ago
> 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-users-of-search-engines-in-december-2012/ http://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/chart/899/unique-... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub
- DigitalSea 14y ago
  I didn't mean in terms of numbers. Of course more people use Google, but lets not underestimate the impact Github has had and will continue to have. If you're a developer, Github has essentially become a requirement to have, it's a developers resume. If it weren't for Github the numerous open source contributions I've made as well as projects I've open sourced myself wouldn't have come to fruition, and while my contributions are small in the greater scheme of things, you never know, one commit might make all the difference between a good web application and a great web application.
  - recursive 14y ago
    > it's a developers resume I keep hearing this on places like HN, yet when I've been applying to software jobs in the real world lately, there's been barely a mention of it.

pom 14y ago

It’s also my Github birthday, as I joined on April 11th, 2011!

malkia 14y ago

Hub Hub Hurrray Gitters!

xiaoma 14y ago

Yay! BTW, I live in SF and I REALLY want one of those octo-nyan-cat stickers for my laptop. Just sayin...

x-sam 14y ago

Happy birthday Github! You are rocking opensource. It's just amazing so easily be able to fix some software, to make some commitments into project you do love! But, 6 million repositories for 3.5 million users? Really? How many bots do you have? I'm not sure, that general user has 1.7 repository. I thought the number is higher, at least 3 or something. How many repositories do you have with forks?

nicholassmith 14y ago

Hard to imagine a world without GitHub now, it's become that pervasive. Great service, great people there. Hopefully we'll be saying happy birthday in another 5 years with even more people using it for open source projects.

ukandy 14y ago
GitHub really become the standard for open source projects in such a short space of time, even the big name projects felt compelled to switch. Congrats GitHub.

remi 14y ago

Moderators edit titles all the time but now it’s been 7 hours and no one still has corrected "Github" to "GitHub"?

kmfrk 14y ago

What I really love about GitHub is that it's one of the really exciting companies that has never really disappointed nor sold out like Twitter did. I'm as excited about GitHub as ever.

chimeracoder 14y ago
> What I really love about GitHub is that it's one of the really exciting companies that has never really disappointed nor sold out like Twitter did. To be completely fair to Twitter, it's been less than a year since Github raised their first round of funding ($100MM). Twitter has raised $1.6 billion over the last seven years. It's a lot easier not to sell out when your investors aren't pressuring you to pull a profit yet. (Also remember that almost all of Github's funding comes from a single investor). I like Github, but it's a bit premature to say that they've "never sold out".
- kmfrk 14y ago
  That just means that GitHub were much quicker to find a profitable business model than Twitter, though. :)

martinced 14y ago

Congratulations and thank you Linus. Thank you so much. As Linus said (paraphrasing): "I realized that in two weeks I could code something better than any single VCS out there". Linus' kind of passion and hatred towards mediocrity (CVS and SVN) is a kind of attitude we need more. Not from everybody but from the true creators. Linus is one of these "unreasonable man" upon which progress depends on. Long life Linus and long life is "vocal" point of views.

prezjordan 14y ago

Github is the reason I have an awesome internship this summer. Thanks :)

igorgue 14y ago

I joined on April 12 2008 [1], I wonder what's my user id :) [1] https://github.com/igorgue https://github.com/igorgue

jbarnette 14y ago
It's in the early 7000's.
3pt14159 14y ago
It is 7014.

WalterBright 14y ago

Github has been a great boon to the D programming language community https://github.com/d-programming-language https://github.com/d-programming-language . There's been a very obvious 'before' and 'after' we moved to github.

cpeterso 14y ago
Was the improvement from increased visibility for the project or from changes in the development process using GitHub?
- WalterBright 14y ago
  Both. What also improved enormously was participation by people who previously thought it too clumsy to. Github brought an organized, easy method of contributing. It was like night and day. Switching to github was probably the best organizational decision we made. From a business standpoint, I've also found that github's severs are fast and reliable, and the turnaround for tech support questions is fast and accurate. I'm very impressed with github.