mojombo

17 ms·

151.
by mojombo 16y ago
Code Complete is a must read for professional developers. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is always good for a mind-bending read. All of HP Lovecraft's work is excellent. Anything by Arthur C Clarke or Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury
152.
by mojombo 16y ago
Perhaps not, but the name has served us well so far. Early adopters like to identify with new technology and the name GitHub does that extremely well. I can't predict if we'll need to change the name later on. The next few years should make
153.
by mojombo 16y ago
Not currently. We usually approach specific people we want to hire and pitch them on coming to work for us.
154.
by mojombo 16y ago
Right now we're focused on building the best team and making the best product we can. If this should lead to an attractive acquisition offer at some point in the future then we will surely consider it as a company and weight the benefits an
155.
by mojombo 16y ago
I don't know that I'd classify us as a traditional freemium offering. The only difference between the free and paid accounts is privacy. In any case, this has worked out extremely well for us. In exchange for free access to the site for ope
156.
by mojombo 16y ago
Our lead sysadmin is in Australia and we have a support person in Greece. So yes, we're open to it!
157.
by mojombo 16y ago
Nobody invited me! We're open to sponsorships. Send me details: tom@github.com.
158.
by mojombo 16y ago
I don't think we'd all fit!
159.
by mojombo 16y ago
Oh, good point, I still need to write that. I'll put it on the list!
160.
by mojombo 16y ago
We hire very slowly and very carefully. And we draw from our personal network first. The best way to get hired by GitHub is to be in San Francisco, come to the Drinkups, write awesome open source code or make insanely beautiful designs, and
161.
by mojombo 16y ago
It's hard to say. We don't have a lot of extra bandwidth to put towards properly releasing these kinds of side projects. I'd love to get it into the public's hands someday though.
162.
by mojombo 16y ago
I started Gravatar when I knew nobody and nobody knew me. It grew quite rapidly. The single most important lesson you can learn from GitHub and Gravatar is that virality and community can help turn any good idea into a huge success. Make so
163.
by mojombo 16y ago
Yes, I've met all kinds of people while travelling that pay for GitHub accounts. I'm always surprised at how many people have heard of GitHub in other countries. I think it shows how successful virality can be. We plant the seeds of GitHub
164.
by mojombo 16y ago
Not really. Any mistakes we made were learning experiences and we fixed them. The only regrettable decisions are those that you let control you.
165.
by mojombo 16y ago
I think Chris was the primary one behind that decision, but I agree. Unicorn kicks ass!
166.
by mojombo 16y ago
We still use BERT-RPC for all communications between the Rails app and the backend file servers to transfer information about Git repos. It's been working great but there are some improvements I'd like to build into a BERT-RPC 2.0 spec (asy
167.
by mojombo 16y ago
I want all of the data on GitHub to be open. We recently made our wiki system Git-backed so that users could get their data. I want to do the same for Issues and comments and everything else. These things take time. I'm not really sure what
168.
by mojombo 16y ago
Soon, I hope. =)
169.
by mojombo 16y ago
We look for features that we want to use ourselves. It's usually quite apparent what areas of the site need some love or where entire features are missing. The things that get implemented are the things that are important enough for someone
170.
by mojombo 16y ago
You do it by building a company so compelling that those people would rather join your company than start their own. You do this by optimizing for happiness and creating a culture that can't be ignored.
171.
by mojombo 16y ago
It's higher than one percent, but we don't publicize those numbers. It's hard to compute the difference in ratio internationally vs. domestically because we only have the optional user specified location field to go off of.
172.
by mojombo 16y ago
Well, what we've done seems to be working pretty well. Have an open source tool (or leverage someone else's) and then sell additional hosted or installable tools that expand the power of the underlying tool. I know of a lot of places that d
173.
by mojombo 16y ago
I don't have any experience with non-technical cofounders, but I don't think that I'd start an internet company with one unless they were the absolutely most well connected, proven person that was going to be instrumental in getting us into
174.
by mojombo 16y ago
Sorry, I'm contractually unable to divulge that amount.
175.
by mojombo 16y ago
We don't put up with any bullshit. If the existing software out there displeases us, no matter how mature it is, we'll be tempted to build something better. This is how progress is made. It's possible that we're duplicating effort somewhere
176.
by mojombo 16y ago
We have an awesome tool we call Haystack that we use to collect, categorize, and search exceptions and other notices. It uses MongoDB capped collections to keep the number of stored entries to a manageable level. "Needles" are simple JSON h
177.
by mojombo 16y ago
Git was the first distributed version control system that I spent any time with. It turned out that it was also the most elegant in construction and the most powerful in ability. I think the future of Git is to become the technology on whic
178.
by mojombo 16y ago
Alcohol can either be a great social lubricator or a dangerous drug depending on how you use it. We're all friends and responsible adults at GitHub. Should there be a problem of this nature, we will address it in a private and personal fash
179.
by mojombo 16y ago
Absolutely. How about Nihon?
180.
by mojombo 16y ago
I used to go to a lot of Ruby meetups. While the talks were generally high quality, my favorite part was always going to the bar afterwards and talking with fellow coders about what got them excited. This is where new ideas really get start

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