December 2013 Summaries

GitHub recently updated its SSL setup to enhance security by introducing support for Forward Secrecy and Authenticated Encryption Ciphers, which offer stronger protection against attacks. Forward Secrecy ensures that even if encryption keys are compromised, past communication remains secure, while Authenticated Encryption provides ciphers less susceptible to vulnerabilities. The updates are already supported by browsers like Chrome, and additional information about the setup can be found on SSL Labs. For those interested in a deeper dive into these changes, a more detailed post has been published by Dirkjan Bussink.

In an exciting milestone, GitHub celebrated the creation of its 10 millionth repository, marking a significant growth in the platform's usage, with over 5.5 million repositories established in the past year alone. Originally taking nearly four years to reach its first million, the pace has accelerated dramatically, with the latest million added in just 48 days. This surge includes notable projects such as the White House's Project Open Data, the application container engine Docker, and the Tate Metadata project, along with numerous contributions from major companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. The article encourages users to explore the diverse and innovative projects on the site while looking forward to sharing more insights about this prolific year.

As the year draws to a close, Tim Pease encourages users to review and potentially close long-standing open issues on GitHub that have not been updated in over a year, suggesting these are unlikely to be addressed in the future. He highlights the effectiveness of GitHub's search system in identifying such issues, providing examples of search queries to locate them. With 563,600 open issues on the platform that have remained untouched for at least a year, Pease advocates for closing these inactive cases to streamline ongoing projects and improve repository management.

Michael C. Harris, known as @michaeltwofish, invites the community in Singapore to join him for a casual meet-up at The Tipple Town Café on Thursday, December 19, at 7:30 pm. This event offers an opportunity to engage in tech discussions and enjoy complimentary drinks. The gathering promises to be an informal and friendly occasion for attendees to connect and converse in a relaxed setting. The location is 11 Club St., Singapore, and the event highlights the chance for local tech enthusiasts to network and share ideas.

GitHub has launched a revamped pages.github.com to streamline the process of creating and publishing GitHub Pages sites, making it more accessible for users to host static HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript sites. This update guides users through setting up their first site in minutes, regardless of whether they use Git for the command line, GitHub for Windows, or GitHub for Mac. The site is not only beneficial for newcomers but also offers resources for experienced users to enhance their skills with the Jekyll templating engine and custom domain setups.

GitHub's Denver Hubbers are hosting their first tea-themed gathering at iN-TEA in downtown Littleton on Tuesday, December 17, from 7pm to 9pm. This event promises an array of tea varieties, hors-d’oeuvres, and discussions on Git and GitHub topics, including workflows with Pull Requests. Special guest @pengwynn from Texas will be present, contributing to the training videos being created. Attendees are advised about parking options, with spaces available on Main Street, nearby residential streets, and at the RTD Park and Ride at Alamo and Prince.

GitHub Explore has introduced a new module that allows users to discover interesting projects by seeing what repositories their friends and GitHub staff have starred. This feature is available on the explore landing page, the mobile version, and the explore newsletter, enabling users to view projects that are popular among people they follow. By clicking the star count on a repository, users can see which of their friends have starred it, enhancing collaborative exploration. Additionally, GitHub staff shares their favorite discoveries in the "Starred by GitHub staff" section, adding a curated layer of recommendations to the platform.

Join the final Passion Projects talk of the year on Thursday, December 12th, featuring Melissa Severini, GitHub's first employee and former business operations leader. As a co-founder of Org Org, the first community for organization organizers in tech, Melissa is known for her organizational skills and ability to inspire, having been GitHub's first female employee, or "Lady Hubber." The event will take place at GitHub HQ in San Francisco from 6:30 to 9:00 pm, with limited space requiring registration. Attendees will enjoy food, beverages, and a live musical performance by Mara Hruby, both before and after Melissa's talk.

Starting today, changes (or "diffs") in prose documents are now soft-wrapped, enhancing readability by allowing users to review and comment without the need for excessive scrolling. This update encourages users to stop hard-wrapping their prose documents, as the soft-wrap feature provides a more seamless and user-friendly experience. The announcement, made by Brandon Keepers, emphasizes the improved ease of document management and review.

GitHub has introduced a new feature aimed at enhancing the code review process by allowing users to expand the context around code changes. Traditionally, only three lines of context are shown in a diff, but with the new "unfold" button, users can click to reveal additional lines of context, even up to the entire file, if needed. This feature is available in any area where diffs are rendered, providing a more comprehensive view of code changes for both public and private projects. This improvement is designed to facilitate a deeper understanding of code modifications, thereby improving the review process.

GitHub has introduced a new feature to enhance the user experience for those publishing on GitHub Pages by providing descriptive, human-readable error messages for failed builds, making it easier for users to troubleshoot issues. This update aims to assist users in quickly addressing and resolving errors when pushing changes to their GitHub Pages sites through various platforms such as Git command line, desktop apps, or GitHub.com. The initiative is part of GitHub's broader efforts to improve the platform's reliability and user-friendliness, with further support for additional error messages planned for the coming weeks. Ben Balter, who has played a significant role in various capacities at GitHub, announced this update as part of his ongoing commitment to ensuring a safe, secure, and welcoming environment for developers worldwide.