March 2014 Summaries

GitHub has enhanced its functionality by introducing improved visualization for list arrangements within its rendered prose diff view, making collaboration more efficient. Lists in Markdown are straightforward to create, offering a simple way to organize information, whether unordered or nested, which teams often use to track tasks or manage backlogs through issues and pull requests. These new visual tools allow users to easily see changes over time, such as added, removed, or reordered list items, providing insight into project development. GitHub's integrated toolset, which includes pull requests, commits, and issues, allows seamless document management without isolating them in separate systems, making collaboration more effective by leveraging the same tools used for code management.

The Ruby Conference in the Philippines is hosting its first-ever event, culminating with an after-party at Bugsy’s Bar & Bistro on Saturday, March 29, at 7 pm. Attendees are invited to socialize with notable figures such as Michael Harris (@michaeltwofish), @calavera, @rubiojr, and @meatcoder, a local participant. The event is inclusive, welcoming those who did not attend the conference, offering a chance to discuss technology over drinks.

GitHub is hosting its inaugural drinkup event in Budapest on Tuesday, April 1, coinciding with the presence of Jess Hosman and Emily in the city for the Write the Docs EU conference. The gathering will take place at Lokál Kávézó és Bár at 7 pm, offering an opportunity for attendees to socialize and enjoy beverages in a casual setting.

GitHub has introduced a feature to help users keep track of conversations by updating the page title with the number of new comments since their last visit, ensuring users remain informed about ongoing discussions. This feature highlights unread comments when users return, allowing them to seamlessly continue from where they left off, enhancing the user experience by providing real-time updates and improving engagement in conversations.

GitHub is hosting an event in Oxford, UK, featuring Arfon Smith, on Tuesday, March 25th, from 7:30 pm to 10 pm at Raoul’s Bar on Walton Street. The event promises attendees an opportunity to enjoy some of the finest beverages in the area. Despite some technical difficulties in displaying a map on the webpage, the invitation remains an open call to join and engage with the GitHub community in a relaxed setting. The event is tagged under "events" and is written by Arfon Smith, who is associated with GitHub.

Changing your public profile picture is now more straightforward, as you can easily update it by clicking the "Account Settings" icon in the header, uploading a new image, cropping it, and saving the changes. This enhancement aims to simplify the process of rebranding yourself while still allowing the use of Gravatar if preferred.

GitHub is hosting a Patchwork night at its headquarters on Thursday, March 27th, 2014, from 6 to 9 PM, aimed at beginners learning Git and GitHub. The event offers hands-on experience through which participants will have their first pull request on an open-source project merged, contributing to their GitHub contribution graph. Mentors, including experienced GitHub staff and previous workshop attendees, will be available to assist and answer questions. The evening will also include discussions on engaging with open-source projects and understanding workflows, and no prior coding experience is necessary to attend.

You can now monitor activity for your SSH keys and OAuth tokens, in addition to your browser session activity, through your account settings. The latest activity for each SSH key is available in the SSH keys section, while OAuth token activity can be viewed in the Applications section. It is advised to regularly review these credentials and promptly remove any keys or tokens that are no longer necessary to maintain security.

GitHub enthusiasts in New Zealand were invited to a unique event called the GitHub Bowl-Up on Monday, March 24th, organized by GitHub team members including @shiftkey, @dgoodlad, and @ammeep. The gathering was held at The Lanes, where they reserved bowling lanes and provided food and drinks for a fun-filled evening of bowling. Attendees were encouraged to register due to limited spots, promising an evening of community engagement, laughter, and friendly competition among participants.

GitHub has introduced showcases as a method to discover trending and interesting repositories, categorized for easier exploration by topic. These showcases are curated lists of repositories, similar to a staff-recommended shelf at a bookstore, providing a new way to explore related projects. Each showcase page includes a full list of highlighted repositories, reasons for their selection, and features for searching, viewing related showcases, and discovering new ones. Users can browse through the showcase listings or subscribe to an Atom feed to remain updated on the latest additions, enhancing the discovery experience on GitHub.

GitHub is hosting an event in Nashville, starting with a free public training session on Git and GitHub at Emma Bistro on March 24, from 6 pm to 9 pm, which has gained significant interest leading to a waitlist. Later in the week, attendees can join GitHub team members for a social gathering at The Stone Fox on March 27 at 7 pm, where they can enjoy drinks, Southern cuisine, and live music ranging from punk to western swing. Those attending the GitHub event can access the bands for free by notifying the door staff, highlighting an engaging opportunity for networking and learning in the Nashville community.

GitHub CEO and Co-Founder Chris Wanstrath publicly addressed the resignation of employee Julie Horvath, who cited negative experiences at the company, prompting GitHub to launch a full investigation and place a relevant founder and engineer on leave. Wanstrath expressed regret over the situation and clarified that the founder's wife, mentioned in media reports, never had hiring or firing power and will no longer be allowed in the office. GitHub, which has faced rapid growth challenges, recently hired an experienced HR Lead to improve employee feedback and safety. Wanstrath thanked Horvath for her contributions, particularly her work on Passion Projects, which positively impacted diversity at GitHub, and apologized for any shortcomings, wishing her well in her future endeavors.

On March 11th, GitHub experienced a two-hour disruption due to a sophisticated distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which impacted accessibility to the platform. The attack, which primarily targeted the load balancing tier, involved a large number of HTTP requests directed at a crafted URL that consumed significant network resources. GitHub's mitigation strategies involve handling both volumetric and complex attacks, and while they successfully mitigated this attack, it exposed gaps in their monitoring and pre-configuration capabilities. The company has since implemented improvements in their monitoring systems, enhanced their automatic mitigation capabilities, and is exploring ways to simulate attacks to bolster response times. The incident underscores GitHub's commitment to reinforcing its infrastructure to maintain reliability and trust among its users.

GitHub Pages has introduced several new features to enhance website hosting capabilities, including access to repository metadata, support for Jekyll plugins, and improved content management. Jekyll sites can now utilize repository information like the latest SHA1, project details, and dependency versions, which are accessible within the site.github namespace for easy integration into pages and posts. Additionally, GitHub Pages now supports the Jemoji and jekyll-mentions plugins to incorporate emojis and @mentions, mirroring the functionality found on GitHub.com, while the Jekyll-redirect-from plugin offers a simple solution for URL redirection when file names change. This update is part of ongoing efforts by Ben Balter, GitHub's Chief of Staff for Security, to promote a secure and community-friendly environment on the platform, drawing on his extensive experience in program management and open-source advocacy.

Passion Projects is a talk series designed to highlight the achievements of remarkable women in the tech industry, celebrating their contributions and insights. In its 11th installment, the series featured Timoni West, who discussed her background in design and emphasized the role of the Internet in democratizing data access for the general public. The interview with West, conducted by Julie Ann Horvath, also noted her transition to working with Alphaworks following the talk.

GitHub has introduced timezone-aware contribution graphs to better accommodate its global user base, allowing contributions to be counted based on the user's local timezone. This update ensures that developers in different regions, such as Japan, Australia, or Ulan Bator, have their contributions accurately reflected from their perspective. The system uses timezone information from commit timestamps, while pull requests and issues opened on the web rely on the browser's timezone. Additionally, users interacting with GitHub's API can specify their timezone. This feature, implemented without affecting existing contribution streaks, has been in effect for contributions made after March 10, 2014, Coordinated Universal Time.

Integrating various tools with GitHub enhances software development by improving collaboration, code quality, automated testing, and deployment efficiency. Thousands of applications and services, such as Asana, CircleCI, and Code Climate, already work seamlessly with GitHub, linking commits and issues to project tasks, testing code quality, and facilitating code deployment to platforms like Heroku and Amazon Web Services. These integrations assist companies like Airbnb, Harry's, and Infinum in refining their testing, code review, and continuous integration processes. Users are encouraged to explore popular tools compatible with GitHub to enhance their software development practices and suggest new integrations for consideration.

The GitHub Developer Program is designed to equip developers with the necessary resources to create top-tier integrations for the GitHub community, reflecting GitHub's commitment to providing a robust API. Over time, GitHub's API has expanded to offer more flexibility, capabilities, and endpoints. The launch of the Developer Program marks a new phase, offering participants continual updates on API changes, early access to select feature releases, and the opportunity to request a development license for GitHub Enterprise. Additionally, developers can submit their work for potential inclusion on the integrations page, with further details and registration available on the developer website.

Selena Deckelmann, a notable contributor to PostgreSQL and a data architect at Mozilla, will be the featured speaker at the March edition, marking the one-year anniversary of Passion Projects. The event will take place on Thursday, March 13th, from 6:00-9:00 pm at GitHub HQ in San Francisco, CA, and registration is required due to limited space. Deckelmann, who has been involved in free and open-source software since 1995 and has been organizing PostgreSQL conferences since 2007, founded PyLadiesPDX and Open Source Bridge, and is known for her international talks on open source and community. The evening will include food, beverages, and live music by Shannon and the Clams following the talk.

GitHub is participating in the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where attendees can visit their booth and attend conference sessions featuring GitHub. In addition to these activities, GitHub is organizing a free public workshop titled "Git & GitHub Foundations for Educators" on March 5th at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, which is open to teachers without the need for a conference badge. Moreover, a casual social event will take place on March 7th at Publik Draft House, allowing SIGCSE attendees and local GitHub enthusiasts to connect over drinks, provided by GitHub, further engaging the community in a relaxed setting.

The latest video in the OctoTales series highlights DeNA, the creators of the mobile gaming platform Mobage, showcasing how they have utilized GitHub Enterprise since 2012 to develop and distribute software across seven countries. With a focus on real-world user research and a collaborative culture, DeNA has successfully built a platform that connects 40 million users through mobile gaming experiences. The series invites others to share their own stories by contacting [email protected], as shared by Kelly Watkins.