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I'm amazed by how fast GitHub has managed to become the place for anything git and take a significant market-share from sites like SourceForge and Google Code,

I'm amazed by how fast GitHub has managed to become the place for anything git and take a significant market-share from sites like SourceForge and Google Code, in a pretty short period of time.

pmjordan 17y ago
It's particularly curious as Sourceforge and Google Code ostensibly have more to offer in terms of mailing lists, bug tracking, etc. Yet, GitHub clearly provides far superior hosting and source control tools and also lowers the bar to entry for participation, and I think this has made all the difference. I also find it notable that GitHub's freemium model means they don't feel the need to bury their site with advertising (as is the case with Sourceforge) which makes it far more usable and also seems to convey a friendlier atmosphere.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  GitHub does have Issues.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    I make no claims to the contrary. Nobody is perfect. What is the point you are trying to make, exactly?
    - nixme 17y ago
      He's talking about Issues[1], GitHub's issue tracker :) [1] http://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-tracker http://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-tracker
      - pmjordan 17y ago
        Ah. Thank you. That... was rather foolish of me.
        steveklabnik 17y ago
        Not really. I should have done more than capitalize the 'i.'
leftnode 17y ago
Deservedly so. I was a long time Subversion user and just recently switched to git on github. Automatic downloads from the tags you push make it worth the price of admission alone. I'm going through an interview process now, and its made it very easy to show off code and reduced the time on the phone asking questions mainly used to remove the cruft.
- icefox 17y ago
  Do you send them to the downloads tab or just a link to the source at a branch and tell them to click the download button?
bugs 17y ago
I must say the thing I like most about github is that they seem to be very transparent about who they are and what they do. Add that into the website interface which is insanely easy to navigate and use and it makes a very nice website. This differs greatly from sourceforge, which now looks like a shareware site, and google code which can be difficult to navigate at times.
icefox 17y ago
Google Code doesn't do Git. They do support Mercurial, but given Git's popularity I think it was silly that they choose to support only Mercurial.
tolmasky 17y ago
I liken the experience of movoing to GitHub very much to that of Facebook back in the day. Prior to Facebook, I would have never thought of joining a social network, I never "got" friendster or myspace or whatever. Then a lot of stuff came together at the right time: I entered college and Facebook was college only back then, making it much more obvious what it did for me, it wasn't the ugliest thing in the universe like all the other sites, it was very simple and elegant, etc. Similarly, other source sites were always more of an annoyance than a tool. They were this thing that I had to navigate and fight against just to get to code: I much preferred hitting a directory listing to ending up on sourceforge. Then, again a lot of pieces came together: git came along, where social code actually maked sense and github took advantage of this showing me immediately the benefits of putting my code there, the site is beautiful and shows me the code on the first page, etc.
davidw 17y ago
To be fair (well, and a bit cynical), github is also catching a bit of the hype wave. There are plenty of solid projects hosted elsewhere that work just fine.

I'm amazed by how fast GitHub has managed to become the place for anything git and take a significant market-share from sites like SourceForge and Google Code, in a pretty short period of time.

pmjordan 17y ago

It's particularly curious as Sourceforge and Google Code ostensibly have more to offer in terms of mailing lists, bug tracking, etc. Yet, GitHub clearly provides far superior hosting and source control tools and also lowers the bar to entry for participation, and I think this has made all the difference. I also find it notable that GitHub's freemium model means they don't feel the need to bury their site with advertising (as is the case with Sourceforge) which makes it far more usable and also seems to convey a friendlier atmosphere.

steveklabnik 17y ago
GitHub does have Issues.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  I make no claims to the contrary. Nobody is perfect. What is the point you are trying to make, exactly?
  - nixme 17y ago
    He's talking about Issues[1], GitHub's issue tracker :) [1] http://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-tracker http://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-tracker
    - pmjordan 17y ago
      Ah. Thank you. That... was rather foolish of me.
      - steveklabnik 17y ago
        Not really. I should have done more than capitalize the 'i.'

leftnode 17y ago

Deservedly so. I was a long time Subversion user and just recently switched to git on github. Automatic downloads from the tags you push make it worth the price of admission alone. I'm going through an interview process now, and its made it very easy to show off code and reduced the time on the phone asking questions mainly used to remove the cruft.

icefox 17y ago
Do you send them to the downloads tab or just a link to the source at a branch and tell them to click the download button?

bugs 17y ago

I must say the thing I like most about github is that they seem to be very transparent about who they are and what they do. Add that into the website interface which is insanely easy to navigate and use and it makes a very nice website. This differs greatly from sourceforge, which now looks like a shareware site, and google code which can be difficult to navigate at times.

icefox 17y ago

Google Code doesn't do Git. They do support Mercurial, but given Git's popularity I think it was silly that they choose to support only Mercurial.

tolmasky 17y ago

I liken the experience of movoing to GitHub very much to that of Facebook back in the day. Prior to Facebook, I would have never thought of joining a social network, I never "got" friendster or myspace or whatever. Then a lot of stuff came together at the right time: I entered college and Facebook was college only back then, making it much more obvious what it did for me, it wasn't the ugliest thing in the universe like all the other sites, it was very simple and elegant, etc. Similarly, other source sites were always more of an annoyance than a tool. They were this thing that I had to navigate and fight against just to get to code: I much preferred hitting a directory listing to ending up on sourceforge. Then, again a lot of pieces came together: git came along, where social code actually maked sense and github took advantage of this showing me immediately the benefits of putting my code there, the site is beautiful and shows me the code on the first page, etc.

davidw 17y ago

To be fair (well, and a bit cynical), github is also catching a bit of the hype wave. There are plenty of solid projects hosted elsewhere that work just fine.