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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 reall

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.
    - nateleiby 14y ago
      Perhaps only part of the resume. As a programmer, seeing real code, quality of commits, and working example projects made a big impression on me when recruiting intern-level developers. Also can see engagement with OSS, if applicable. Would be curious what sort of companies (size, location, focus, developer-to-other ratio) you're applying to and who they're seeking. Thanks!
      - recursive 14y ago
        A few months back, I was applying for developer positions in northern California. Most of my professional experience is in .net, but I applied for all kinds of work, including a rails position. I'm not sure what the average dev/total ratio was for all those, but it's roughly 1/3 where I ended up, with a total size of less than 50. Github was never mentioned during any of my interviews, except occasionally by me to say that I have an account. (though I haven't done much with it) No one seemed particularly interested.
        saraid216 14y ago
        I've had my Github account on my resume for a while now, and the last time I had an interview, they literally pulled it up while I was there and made some comments about it. It didn't seem like a huge factor in their decision, though.
    - silverbax88 14y ago
      That's because most big, established corporations aren't using it.
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
  Doesn't matter that 99% of people don't know what it is because 99% of people are using software built with it.
  - FireBeyond 14y ago
    [citation needed] - highly doubtful.
    - zenlikethat 14y ago
      As far as the "99% of users are using software built with git" claim goes, it's not that far fetched depending on your notion of "using". ~32% of servers run Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Servers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...), which of course was built with git, so if you are an Internet user at all it is extremely likely that you are using software built with git.
      - B-Con 14y ago
        But not GitHUB. The site itself is not on par with Google in terms of influence, and neither does it's services influence nearly all Internet users.
- derefr 14y ago
  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."
  - oneeyedpigeon 14y ago
    If fixing a bug in your product depends on GitHub being up, you're doing something wrong.
  - heelhook 14y ago
    The very fact that git is distributed means that if github was down for a week your development shouldn't suffer, just become more annoying maybe, but you can easily so without GitHub I'd you know the ABC of how git works. Your theory doesn't hold when comparing github with infrastructure everybody uses but few people know about, just because its used by many people that write programs that are used by many other users doesn't mean it's an infrastructure like an Internet backbone.
    - derefr 14y ago
      > your development shouldn't suffer, just become more annoying maybe Right, that's why I wrote "has been delayed a bit", not "has been delayed indefinitely." If you run a distributed OSS project, where your main point of contact with your collaborators is through Github--and your workflow relies on using Github's collaboration features (its wiki and issue tracking, its pull requests, etc.) then Github going down can greatly impede (though not halt) that workflow. (In fact, I might say that if your workflow doesn't rely on the collaboration features, you're not really "using" Github--you're just using git, and syncing with Github, like any project which has a Subversion repo with a Github mirror.) A more major problem with Github going down, though, would be needing to pull an update from a third-party library to fix a bug, when that library's canonical repo is stored on Github. (A problem with any centralzied repo host, really.) If you have any git:// URL dependencies in your Gemfile, or you use Bower at all, you might have a problem deploying your updates...
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Not to sound too elitist, but github is used by the people who make things, important things. How much has the existence of github contributed to the success of major projects hosted there, such as rails, bootstrap, jquery, node, coffeescript, etc?
  - DigitalSea 14y ago
    Looking at the number of pull requests for any given project I guess is a very good indicator. Looking at the number of closed jQuery pull requests yields a pretty high number: https://github.com/jquery/jquery/pulls?direction=desc&page=1&sort=created&state=closed https://github.com/jquery/jquery/pulls?direction=desc&pa... — there's no doubt in my mind that putting Bootstrap on Github is the reason it succeeded as well (look at the number of pull requests, forks and issues raised. Looking at Rails you can see there have been thousands of successfully merged pull requests: https://github.com/rails/rails/pulls?direction=desc&page=1&sort=created&state=closed https://github.com/rails/rails/pulls?direction=desc&page... — would that number of bugs and features have been addressed if it weren't on Github? I could go on with lists of more high activity repositories, but I think it's more than obvious Github has been a blessing to a lot of open source projects and undoubtedly helped them become more successful and stable (how much is a somewhat subjective and un-measurable thing).
    - InclinedPlane 14y ago
      Also look at the other side of the equation, acquisition and installation. How many OSS projects have "git clone <git-hub-repo>" as the first step of their install instructions these days?
- conradfr 14y ago
  Somehow you don't even need to know what Git is to browse and download things from Github.
- ExpiredLink 14y ago
  BTW, 99% of all Github projects use it as centralized VCS.
Avshalom 14y ago
Sourceforge was a lot less clunky and inaccessible 10 years ago. In '04/'05 they did a big site redesign that basically killed it. That's part of why github took off, a lot of people were waiting for the next old sourceforge.
- saraid216 14y ago
  I don't remember Sourceforge ever being anything but clunky and inaccessible, even back then. To be fair, I wasn't much of a programmer at that time, either.
- purephase 14y ago
  You clearly remember a different Sourceforge than I do as it was always clunky and inaccessible.
tomelders 14y ago
I'd say since Stack Overflow, in terms of how it made life better for developers.

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.
  - nateleiby 14y ago
    Perhaps only part of the resume. As a programmer, seeing real code, quality of commits, and working example projects made a big impression on me when recruiting intern-level developers. Also can see engagement with OSS, if applicable. Would be curious what sort of companies (size, location, focus, developer-to-other ratio) you're applying to and who they're seeking. Thanks!
    - recursive 14y ago
      A few months back, I was applying for developer positions in northern California. Most of my professional experience is in .net, but I applied for all kinds of work, including a rails position. I'm not sure what the average dev/total ratio was for all those, but it's roughly 1/3 where I ended up, with a total size of less than 50. Github was never mentioned during any of my interviews, except occasionally by me to say that I have an account. (though I haven't done much with it) No one seemed particularly interested.
      - saraid216 14y ago
        I've had my Github account on my resume for a while now, and the last time I had an interview, they literally pulled it up while I was there and made some comments about it. It didn't seem like a huge factor in their decision, though.
  - silverbax88 14y ago
    That's because most big, established corporations aren't using it.
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Doesn't matter that 99% of people don't know what it is because 99% of people are using software built with it.
- FireBeyond 14y ago
  [citation needed] - highly doubtful.
  - zenlikethat 14y ago
    As far as the "99% of users are using software built with git" claim goes, it's not that far fetched depending on your notion of "using". ~32% of servers run Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Servers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...), which of course was built with git, so if you are an Internet user at all it is extremely likely that you are using software built with git.
    - B-Con 14y ago
      But not GitHUB. The site itself is not on par with Google in terms of influence, and neither does it's services influence nearly all Internet users.
derefr 14y ago
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."
- oneeyedpigeon 14y ago
  If fixing a bug in your product depends on GitHub being up, you're doing something wrong.
- heelhook 14y ago
  The very fact that git is distributed means that if github was down for a week your development shouldn't suffer, just become more annoying maybe, but you can easily so without GitHub I'd you know the ABC of how git works. Your theory doesn't hold when comparing github with infrastructure everybody uses but few people know about, just because its used by many people that write programs that are used by many other users doesn't mean it's an infrastructure like an Internet backbone.
  - derefr 14y ago
    > your development shouldn't suffer, just become more annoying maybe Right, that's why I wrote "has been delayed a bit", not "has been delayed indefinitely." If you run a distributed OSS project, where your main point of contact with your collaborators is through Github--and your workflow relies on using Github's collaboration features (its wiki and issue tracking, its pull requests, etc.) then Github going down can greatly impede (though not halt) that workflow. (In fact, I might say that if your workflow doesn't rely on the collaboration features, you're not really "using" Github--you're just using git, and syncing with Github, like any project which has a Subversion repo with a Github mirror.) A more major problem with Github going down, though, would be needing to pull an update from a third-party library to fix a bug, when that library's canonical repo is stored on Github. (A problem with any centralzied repo host, really.) If you have any git:// URL dependencies in your Gemfile, or you use Bower at all, you might have a problem deploying your updates...
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Not to sound too elitist, but github is used by the people who make things, important things. How much has the existence of github contributed to the success of major projects hosted there, such as rails, bootstrap, jquery, node, coffeescript, etc?
- DigitalSea 14y ago
  Looking at the number of pull requests for any given project I guess is a very good indicator. Looking at the number of closed jQuery pull requests yields a pretty high number: https://github.com/jquery/jquery/pulls?direction=desc&page=1&sort=created&state=closed https://github.com/jquery/jquery/pulls?direction=desc&pa... — there's no doubt in my mind that putting Bootstrap on Github is the reason it succeeded as well (look at the number of pull requests, forks and issues raised. Looking at Rails you can see there have been thousands of successfully merged pull requests: https://github.com/rails/rails/pulls?direction=desc&page=1&sort=created&state=closed https://github.com/rails/rails/pulls?direction=desc&page... — would that number of bugs and features have been addressed if it weren't on Github? I could go on with lists of more high activity repositories, but I think it's more than obvious Github has been a blessing to a lot of open source projects and undoubtedly helped them become more successful and stable (how much is a somewhat subjective and un-measurable thing).
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    Also look at the other side of the equation, acquisition and installation. How many OSS projects have "git clone <git-hub-repo>" as the first step of their install instructions these days?
conradfr 14y ago
Somehow you don't even need to know what Git is to browse and download things from Github.
ExpiredLink 14y ago
BTW, 99% of all Github projects use it as centralized VCS.

Avshalom 14y ago

Sourceforge was a lot less clunky and inaccessible 10 years ago. In '04/'05 they did a big site redesign that basically killed it. That's part of why github took off, a lot of people were waiting for the next old sourceforge.

saraid216 14y ago
I don't remember Sourceforge ever being anything but clunky and inaccessible, even back then. To be fair, I wasn't much of a programmer at that time, either.
purephase 14y ago
You clearly remember a different Sourceforge than I do as it was always clunky and inaccessible.

tomelders 14y ago

I'd say since Stack Overflow, in terms of how it made life better for developers.