November 2012 Summaries

The GitHub Game Off is nearing its conclusion with nearly 1337 forks and numerous impressive games submitted, and the judges are eager to begin evaluations. The deadline for submissions has been extended to December 1st at 12:00 PST, and participants are reminded to ensure all changes are pushed and that their forks' website and description fields are updated before this time. For those seeking last-minute feedback or testers, the Twitter hashtag #ggo12 is recommended. The announcement, made by Lee Reilly, a Senior Program Manager at GitHub Developer Relations, emphasizes the importance of community engagement and proper submission procedures in this open-source event.

Join hosts JD Pace and Shay Frendt for a casual gathering on Friday, November 30th, at 8:00 PM at The Griffin bar in Las Vegas, located at 511 Fremont St. The event offers an opportunity for developers, designers, and tech enthusiasts to network and unwind, especially for those recovering from the AWS re:Invent conference or looking to kickstart their Friday night in Vegas. Drinks are on the hosts, and it's a chance to meet like-minded individuals in a lively setting, underscoring that in Las Vegas, a good reason to party is never needed.

HTML::Pipeline is a versatile gem developed by GitHub that allows users to integrate emoji, syntax highlighting, custom linking, and markdown seamlessly by using a series of filters to transform user input into HTML. Users can utilize pre-defined filters like Markdown and Textile compilation, syntax highlighting, input sanitization, and autolinking, or even create custom filters for tailored transformations. By chaining filters together in a pipeline, such as converting Markdown to HTML and then applying syntax highlighting, users can achieve complex transformations efficiently. The project encourages users to explore its full capabilities through its comprehensive documentation, making it a valuable tool for developers looking to enhance their web content with dynamic functionalities.

Tim Berglund and Matthew McCullough are organizing a social event called a "drinkup" for GitHub enthusiasts following the Denver Public Git Workshop. This informal gathering is scheduled for Monday, December 3, at 6:30 pm at Darcy’s Bistro and Pub located at 4955 S Ulster St. #103 in Denver, Colorado. The event is open to all GitHub fans, regardless of whether they attended the workshop, and attendees are advised to inform the hostess that they are there for the GitHub drinkup for directions to the designated area.

In April, new visualizations were introduced, including a particularly useful contributors page, which provides insights into activity levels and impact of individual contributors on projects. This page has proven to be a more effective tool for understanding contributions than the previous impact graph, which is being retired after four years of use. The contributors page allows users to compare the contributions and influence of different team members within projects, offering a clearer perspective on participation levels. Notable repositories such as jquery/jquery, rails/rails, and twitter/bootstrap are highlighted as examples where this tool can be effectively utilized.

Brandon Keepers announces a GitHub Drinkup event in Oxford, UK, coinciding with the All Your Base database conference for web developers. Scheduled for Thursday, 22 November at 8:30 pm, the gathering will take place at Far from the Madding Crowd, located at 10-12 Friars Entry, Oxford OX1 2BY. Attendees are encouraged to join for enjoyable drinks and engaging conversations, simply mentioning they are there for the GitHub Drinkup to find the group.

An update has been released that integrates the features of the Command Bar and Stars, allowing repositories that users star to appear in their autocomplete results, enhancing user experience by combining these functionalities.

GitHub.com has introduced a new, streamlined header and footer design to improve user focus on the main content of the page by minimizing the visual impact of the site's interface. These elements have been made physically shorter and their contents more concise to enhance usability and navigation.

The second annual Octocat Dodgeball Tournament took place in San Francisco on November 11, 2012, featuring twenty teams and raising $62,000 for local charities like 826 Valencia, Second Harvest Food Bank, SF Public Libraries, and Streetside Stories. The event, supported by the World Dodgeball Society, saw GitHub's Force Pushers win the tournament, overcoming Heroku’s Dodging-Samurai-42 and defeating Thumbtack's All Thumbs in the finals to take home the Octotrophy. Each participating team raised at least $3,000 for charity, with a notable $5,000 donation from New Relic, and the tournament was supported by fans and families. Teams from various companies such as Andreessen Horowitz, Atlassian, Couchsurfing, and Twilio contributed to the event's success, showing a strong community spirit and dedication to charitable causes.

Clojure/conj is hosting a celebratory event in Raleigh, North Carolina, inviting attendees to join a drinkup at The Architect Bar and Social House on Wednesday, November 14th at 9:00 PM. The event is an opportunity to socialize with notable figures such as @imbriaco, @shayfrendt, @spicycode, and @jdpace, who have organized the gathering and offered to buy drinks for guests. Written by Jared Pace, this announcement encourages community engagement and networking among participants in a relaxed and festive setting.

Jerry, Danish, and attendees from Rails Israel are invited to a social gathering for drinks at Levontin 7 in Tel Aviv on Monday, November 12th, starting at 10 PM IST. The event promises an opportunity for networking and socializing in a lively atmosphere, with Danish Khan mentioned as the author of the invitation.

Brian Doll invites attendees of OpenFest to join him and Nick for a social gathering at RockIT, a popular rock and metal bar located at Georgi Benkovski 14 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The event is scheduled to begin at 7 pm on Sunday, November 4th, offering an opportunity for guests to enjoy a pint and connect with fellow festival-goers in a lively setting.