December 2012 Summaries

On December 22nd, GitHub experienced a significant outage during a scheduled maintenance window intended for software updates on their aggregation switches, which were recommended by their network vendor to address previous issues. Despite prior successful tests, unexpected instability arose due to complications with the in-service software upgrade process and MLAG features, leading to network disruptions. This instability triggered failover actions in their fileserver architecture, resulting in both nodes of several fileserver pairs attempting to be active simultaneously, causing a "split-brain" scenario and requiring a comprehensive recovery effort that lasted over five hours. GitHub has since taken steps to prevent similar issues, including postponing further software upgrades until a staging environment is established, revisiting failover timeouts with their vendor, and adjusting their high availability configurations and failover procedures to enhance reliability and prevent future disruptions.

Scheduled Saturday morning maintenance windows, beginning at 0500 Pacific, have been announced to support infrastructure upgrades, with the aim of minimizing customer disruption. These windows will only be used when tasks carry a higher risk of affecting service, and updates will be provided on the status site before and after maintenance. Major disruptions will be communicated via the GitHub Blog by the Friday before. The initial maintenance task involves upgrading software on certain network switches, which is not expected to impact service visibility.

In 2012, GitHub experienced remarkable growth, with user numbers soaring to 2.8 million, marking a 133% increase, and repositories reaching 4.6 million, a 171% rise. This surge in activity is reflected in the daily events on GitHub, with users pushing 140GB of data, creating 25,000 repositories, and making 7,000 pull requests each day. The platform's global reach is evident, with 72% of traffic coming from outside the United States and significant contributions from countries like Germany, the United Kingdom, and China. Notable open-source projects that gained attention in 2012 include FortAwesome/FontAwesome and meteor/meteor, while projects like mxcl/homebrew and rails/rails attracted the highest numbers of unique contributors. GitHub’s culture embraces collaboration and creativity, as evidenced by the widespread use of emojis in communications, highlighting the platform's vibrant community and its belief in the power of collective software development.

John Britton is taking a break from holiday travel to spend time at home in New York City and is inviting people to join him for a special holiday gathering. The event, described as a "Drinkup," is scheduled for Thursday, December 20, at 7:30 pm at Zablozki’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, located at 107 N 6th St, between Wythe Ave and Berry St.

The GitHub Game Off, a game development competition themed around concepts like forking and branching, concluded with over 1337 forks and nearly 200 playable games submitted. Expert judges evaluated each entry, culminating in the announcement of five winners, six runners-up, and seven honorable mentions, all of which are free to play with publicly available source code on GitHub. The winning games featured diverse mechanics, from a platformer where an android gains powers by merging enemy code to a minimalist 3D game focused on dodging branches. Participants are encouraged to continue their projects in the Mozilla Game On competition, which offers categories like Hackable Games, Multi-Device Games, and Web-Only Games, with a submission deadline of February 24, 2013. The event, organized by GitHub's Lee Reilly, aims to inspire interest in game development and coding through open-source collaboration.

Jesse Newland is hosting a social event called a "Drinkup" at Blå Rock Café in Tromsø, Norway, marking the first occurrence of such an event within the Arctic Circle. Scheduled for Saturday, December 15, at 8:00 PM, the gathering promises attendees complimentary beers, the opportunity to meet new friends, enjoy good music, and discuss topics related to GitHub.

GitHub is introducing a new autocompletion feature for Issues and Pull Requests that mirrors the existing functionality for @mentions and emojis. By typing the # symbol, users can access suggestions for Issues and Pull Requests, and further refine the list by entering a number or any text. This enhancement aims to streamline the process of referencing Issues and Pull Requests in discussions and documentation.

GitHub has introduced a revamped homepage designed to emphasize its core principle that collaboration is more effective than solitary work. The update underscores the importance of community and collective effort in achieving success, highlighting the contributions and spirit of GitHub's user base. The announcement, made by Jason Costello, expresses gratitude to the community for embodying this collaborative ethos.

John Barnette provides guidance on how to include essential details such as a legal company name, billing address, and tax ID number on receipts to meet the needs of accountants or tax collectors. Users can easily update their receipts by visiting the billing page and clicking a designated button to add this information.

GitHub announced the deprecation of its Downloads Tab, which allowed users to upload files separate from versioned files in a repository, due to confusion and issues with similarity to Git repository files. The ability to upload new files via the website was disabled immediately, while existing links to previously uploaded files will remain functional for the foreseeable future. Repositories with existing uploads will display their downloads for 90 days, and the Downloads API, also officially deprecated, will be disabled in 90 days. GitHub encourages users to continue distributing code through downloadable source code archives and suggests using the Releases feature for projects that need to host large binary files alongside source archives.

GitHub has revamped its Gist platform to enhance code sharing and collaboration by rewriting it from scratch with improved libraries and style guides. The updated Gist now includes features such as an enhanced Discover function for easier code browsing and a new search capability by language, as well as integration with the Ace editor for syntax-highlighted and indentation-aware editing. Users can also access the full history of every Gist, complete with diffs, and can see which forks have activity to easily find interesting updates. Overall, the new Gist aims to streamline the process of sharing and discovering code snippets and applications, offering a more robust and user-friendly experience.

The announcement invites people to a holiday celebration at MatrixFilmore in San Francisco, highlighting the year's achievements in 2012. Scheduled for Thursday, December 13th, at 8:00 PM, the event offers attendees the chance to enjoy drinks by a fire, despite the absence of typical winter weather in the city. The invitation is accompanied by a photo credit to Nicole Paulson Photography and was written by Kami Richey, who uses the handle @kamzilla.

John Britton invites attendees to join him for a festive gathering at The Rhino Restaurant + Bar in Parkdale, Toronto, as he is in town for a workshop at the University of Toronto. The event, scheduled for Thursday, December 13 at 7:30 pm, offers participants a chance to enjoy some complimentary beers and holiday cheer. The gathering is intended as a social event to foster merriment and networking in a relaxed setting.

A group of individuals from California, including Eric Gerhardt, Demonbane, and Jenifer Duke, along with local Danny Greg, are inviting others to join them for drinks at The Old Queen's Head in London. The gathering is scheduled for Wednesday, December 12th, at 7:00 pm. The message, authored by Jenifer Duke, encourages attendees to meet at the specified venue on Essex Road for a social event.

A new system status API is being released, designed to provide status information in JSON format. This update is authored by Wynn Netherland, also known as @pengwynn, and aims to deliver real-time status updates in a structured and accessible way for developers and users.

GitHub has introduced a feature allowing users to attach images to issues, aiming to reduce the reliance on lengthy text descriptions. This enhancement provides a more visual way to communicate within the platform, and for Chrome users, the convenience is further increased as they can now paste images directly into the comment box for easy uploading.

On November 30th, GitHub experienced significant network issues leading to 18 minutes of complete unavailability, along with intermittent slow responses and errors throughout the day. The problems stemmed from a misconfiguration during a network upgrade aimed at improving scalability and performance, which inadvertently caused a bridge loop and revealed a bug in the aggregation switches. This bug prevented MAC addresses from being learned, leading to network saturation. Despite extensive troubleshooting and collaboration with the network vendor, the issue persisted until a workaround involving restarting core processes on the switches was implemented. GitHub plans to address the root cause with a software update and is committed to improving its infrastructure and incident response through enhanced monitoring, staging environments for testing, and more proactive support engagement. The company acknowledges the impact on users and expresses gratitude for their patience during the incident.

GitHub has launched a new status website to enhance transparency and accessibility regarding its service reliability and performance. Acknowledging the inevitability of downtime, even with high uptime goals, the company emphasizes the importance of how these rare occurrences are managed. The status page employs GitHub's internal Graphite service and uses the D3 JavaScript library to generate graphs, providing users with valuable insights. The site also features an adaptive user interface with CSS media queries to ensure functionality across various devices, supporting users who rely on mobile access. For additional convenience, updates will be automatically posted to the @githubstatus Twitter account, allowing users to receive real-time notifications.

GitHub now allows users to create new files directly within their repositories through a "New File" icon available in the folder's tree listing, providing a seamless file creation experience without leaving the website. This feature supports the creation of README, LICENSE, .gitignore files, and other documentation like contributing guidelines. If users attempt to create a file in a repository they lack access to, GitHub will fork the project and assist in sending a pull request to the original repository. Additionally, GitHub offers a selection of common templates for .gitignore files and allows users to pre-fill the filename field in the URL for convenience.

GitHub has unveiled a revamped homepage for GitHub Enterprise, the self-hosted version of GitHub, featuring both visual updates and refined messaging to better convey the platform's purpose and functionality. Current users will experience a redesigned dashboard and additional features upon logging in. The update aims to enhance user experience while maintaining GitHub Enterprise's reputation as a leading tool for building and deploying software on private servers.

A group of four individuals, including Corey Donohoe, are hosting a social event in Sydney as part of the YOW! circuit, inviting attendees to join them for a drinkup at the King St Brewhouse on King Street Wharf on Thursday, December 6th, at 9:00 pm. The organizers anticipate a strong turnout and offer an opportunity for participants to enjoy complimentary beers and engage with the friendly Sydney tech community in a convivial atmosphere.

GitHub has introduced a new feature to streamline the management of branches after Pull Requests are processed, addressing the common issue of accumulating defunct branches once Pull Requests are merged or closed. Previously, this cleanup required manual intervention through scripting, but now users will find a convenient button to delete lingering branches directly on GitHub.com. This button appears after a Pull Request is merged, and it changes slightly when a Pull Request is closed without being merged to warn users about potential unmerged commits. This feature is accessible only to those with push access to the repository, ensuring efficient and tidy repository management.

Corey Donohoe and a colleague are in Brisbane for the second stop of the YOW! conference, and they are hosting a GitHub party on Monday, December 3, at 8:30 pm. The event will take place at The Plough Inn Tavern on the ground floor lounge, located at Building 29, Stanley Street Plaza. Attendees are encouraged to join the gathering and can ask for the GitHub party if they have trouble locating the group.