June 2012 Summaries

GitHub is hosting its first-ever "drinkup" event in Glasgow, Scotland, at the Arches Cafe Bar on Monday, July 2nd, inviting local developers, designers, and tech enthusiasts to join for drinks and networking. The event is an opportunity for attendees to meet fellow tech community members, facilitated by Lee Reilly, a Senior Program Manager at GitHub known for his roles in open-source advocacy and community support. Following the event, an update included photos from the gathering, showcasing the successful turnout and engagement among participants.

Version 2.0 of the Git and GitHub plugins for Eclipse has been released as part of Eclipse Juno, bringing significant enhancements and new functionalities to users. The EGit plugin, Eclipse's Git integration, has seen substantial changes since its 1.0 version, with the addition of features such as submodule support, stashing, and multiple performance improvements, making it the largest release to date. Additionally, the GitHub plugin now provides comprehensive functionalities for managing Issues, Pull Requests, and Gists, along with the capability to search and clone repositories directly from GitHub.com within the Eclipse environment. These updates aim to enhance user experience and encourage upgrading or installing the new version, and more information is available at the newly launched eclipse.github.com.

Software development teams transitioning to GitHub from Subversion can utilize their preferred tools, as GitHub repositories support both Git and Subversion clients. The GitHub Flow can be adapted for Subversion users by following several steps: creating a topic branch from the latest master branch, making commits within this branch, and eventually merging it into the master branch via pull requests. The process begins with a Subversion checkout, and it's advisable to start with a partial checkout to manage bandwidth effectively. Users can create and switch branches using Subversion commands, make changes, and commit them as usual. Once changes are ready, they can initiate a pull request through the GitHub web interface, discuss modifications with team members, and merge the changes into the master branch if no conflicts arise. This approach allows teams to seamlessly integrate Subversion workflows with GitHub's collaborative features.

GitHub now automatically updates pull requests and issues with new comments in real-time, eliminating the need for users to refresh the page while waiting for updates. This feature enhances the experience of discussing issues and pull requests by allowing users to post new comments using a simple ctrl+enter shortcut, making real-time collaboration more efficient. This improvement was announced by Joshua Peek.

GitHub Pages has recently enhanced its features by introducing automatic generation of user pages and adding three new themes, including Architect and Tactile by @blackant, and Dinky by @broccolini, following prior improvements that accelerated build times and expanded designer theme options for project pages.

An event is being organized for users to socialize at a drinkup in Seattle, taking place at Linda's Tavern on Thursday, June 21st, at 8:00 pm. The gathering promises to offer good drinks, engaging conversation, and an enjoyable atmosphere for attendees. This event, aimed at fostering community interaction and camaraderie, is announced by Kyros Starr.

GitHub Enterprise representatives attended the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, where they invited attendees to visit their booth and join a social event at Minibar on June 20th. The event offered an opportunity for networking over drinks, and Lee Reilly, a Senior Program Manager at GitHub Developer Relations, shared updates and photos from the event. Reilly is known for supporting developer communities and organizing hackathons and game jams.

After attending the Nordic Ruby conference in Stockholm, Sweden, Kyle, Will, and Brian Doll are organizing a social gathering at The Bishops Arms on Monday, June 18th, at 20:30. They invite attendees and others interested to join them for a drink at the venue located at Vasagatan 7, with the event being described as an informal meetup to continue networking and discussions from the conference.

GitHub has officially discontinued API versions 1 and 2, urging users to follow @GitHubAPI on Twitter for the latest updates regarding the API. The current version, API v3, maintains a changelog for any breaking changes and includes plans for future revisions. GitHub encourages users to provide feedback through their support email or contact form, highlighting previous concerns about search support which have been addressed in the API v3 documentation.

The GitHub Data Challenge showcased the creativity and analytical skills of participants worldwide, who explored the vast data of GitHub's public timeline through innovative queries, code, and visualizations. The challenge culminated in a voting process to determine the winners, resulting in a tie for third place. Denis Roussel's "The Octoboard," a stats dashboard of GitHub activity, won first place; Ramiro Gómez's emotional analysis of commit messages claimed second place; and Alexandre Girard's "Le GitHub," a daily GitHub newspaper, along with Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues' visualization of repository activity by language, shared third place. Winners received gift certificates to the GitHub shop, with prizes awarded as $200 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for each third-place winner. The challenge highlighted diverse approaches to analyzing GitHub data and was a testament to the participants' ingenuity.

A drinkup event is being hosted in Charlotte, NC, at the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, located at 9605 North Tryon Street. This gathering is scheduled for Tuesday, June 12th, starting at 5:00 pm, offering attendees an opportunity to enjoy free drinks. The event announcement, aimed at attracting local participants, is authored by Adam Roben, who is associated with the handle @aroben.

Matt Todd invites attendees of the RubyDay.it conference in Milan to join him and @sr for a complimentary drink on Wednesday, June 13th, at 21:00 at Frida, located on via Pollaiuolo, 3, in the Isola district of Milan, Italy.

Simon Rozet and @mtodd are in Copenhagen and extend an invitation for drinks to be held on Tuesday, June 12th at 20:00 at Nørrebro Bryghus, located at Ryesgade 3, 2200 København, Denmark. The message, tagged under events, is an informal invitation for a social gathering.

GitHub celebrated the launch of GitHub for Windows by hosting an evening event at the San Francisco Ferry Building on Friday, June 15th, featuring cocktails, treats, and music by a DJ. The celebration, which was open to everyone, included an open bar from 8 PM to midnight, and the festivities took place upstairs with a lively atmosphere. The event was organized by Brian Doll, who shared the announcement and a photo by KP Tripathi.

GitHub's approach to designing native applications is characterized by a diverse use of programming languages and a broad spectrum of design work, ranging from web and native applications to print and animation. The creation of GitHub for Windows and Mac highlights the company's strategy of developing platform-specific applications, allowing them to address unique platform challenges while maintaining core design principles. The design process for GitHub for Windows, driven by a fast-paced, iterative approach, involved a deep collaboration between designers, with a focus on Metro's clean, modern aesthetic. This process emphasized a content-over-chrome philosophy and integrated GitHub's signature look and feel. Utilizing XAML for design, the team leveraged tools like Visual Studio and Blend to refine visual elements, ensuring a responsive and performance-optimized user interface. The adoption of vector graphics and the borderless window design exemplifies their commitment to modern design trends. Additionally, the application aims to make Git and GitHub's collaborative features accessible to users unfamiliar with command-line tools, demonstrating a design philosophy that prioritizes usability and integration of complex functionalities in a seamless manner.

GitHub has announced the latest release of GitHub Enterprise, which includes several features from GitHub.com as well as new enterprise-specific functionalities. The update introduces Octicons, team mentions, and README section links, alongside enhancements like configurable time zone and NTP settings, which can now be adjusted through the Management Console in response to user requests. Also included is the ability to disable Gravatars to prevent referrer information leakage, with Gravatars now disabled by default. The configuration page has been improved to provide users with clearer progress indicators during the setup process. Additionally, new CLI utilities have been added, such as tools for suspending and unsuspending users, accessing log files, and gathering disk usage information, building upon the limited SSH access introduced in the previous release.

GitHub has launched an improved help site featuring a new user interface, enhanced search capabilities, and a refined categorization system designed to facilitate faster and easier access to information. Users can explore these updates at help.github.com, as announced by Jake Boxer.