May 2015 Summaries

CodeConf, a conference that values diverse perspectives and experiences, has partnered with six organizations to provide tickets to members of underrepresented groups in the tech industry. These organizations include Black Girls CODE, Coding While Black, Girl Geek Dinner Nashville, Lesbians Who Tech, Rails Girls Atlanta, and Trans*H4CK, each dedicated to empowering their respective communities through education, networking, and professional development. The initiative aims to build a diverse audience for the conference by distributing tickets through various methods such as contests, raffles, and community engagement. By collaborating with these organizations, CodeConf hopes to create an inclusive and enriching experience for all attendees and offers the option for individuals to support this cause by purchasing "scholarship" tickets on the registration page.

GitHub Pages, a static site hosting service, initially operated on a simple architecture using two machines in an active/standby configuration, but faced challenges like delayed site visibility and storage limitations. In response, a new infrastructure was implemented in 2015, featuring a frontend routing tier using Dell C5220s and nginx with ngx_lua scripts to efficiently route requests and manage dependencies, notably involving MySQL read replicas for backend storage decisions. The fileserver tier, consisting of Dell R720 pairs, uses DRBD for synchronous data replication, ensuring continuity and quick recovery. This revamped system allows for instant site publication, resolves cold-restart issues, and maintains high performance, with ngx_lua enhancing nginx's capabilities by embedding custom code into the request process. The use of Fastly for caching further mitigates potential outages, ensuring high availability even during maintenance.

A new billing manager role allows individuals to manage an organization's billing details without accessing its code, providing the ability to upgrade or downgrade the organization's plan, update payment details, view transaction history, and receive email receipts. This role is designed to enhance billing management without allowing access to repositories or visibility of private members within the organization, ensuring that billing tasks can be handled efficiently by finance teams while developers focus on coding. For further guidance on adding a billing manager, a help article is available.

CodeConf 2015, held in Nashville on June 25 and 26, features Ariel Waldman as a speaker, who emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration in advancing scientific exploration. Waldman, known for her work with NASA, highlights that such collaborations bring diverse perspectives that can lead to unexpected scientific breakthroughs. Reflecting on her past participation at CodeConf 2011, she notes the event's unique ability to foster unexpected connections and broaden participants' horizons. Additionally, she discusses Science Hack Day, an event hosted by GitHub, which encourages diverse participants to prototype science-related projects, such as an interactive planetarium that became an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Waldman also introduces NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which funds futuristic projects like lunar rovers and human hibernation for Mars travel, and invites public proposals for potential transformative space mission ideas.

CodeConf 2015, set to take place in June, promises an exciting lineup of speakers from a variety of companies and fields within the open-source technology community, including notable figures such as Eric Levine from Airbnb and Casey Rosenthal from Netflix. The event will feature hands-on workshops led by expert trainers, with limited space available. Attendees can enjoy the Nashville open-source community and food from renowned Hattie B’s the evening before the conference. Discounted accommodations are offered at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, with convenient shuttle services to the conference venue. Potential sponsors can still participate, with opportunities like the scholarship program available. The organizers express gratitude for the over 300 high-quality proposal submissions, emphasizing the community's role in shaping the conference. Ticket prices increase after May 25th, and more details can be found on the CodeConf website.

GitHub has expanded its capabilities for government agencies by making its self-hosted GitHub Enterprise available as Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) in the AWS GovCloud (US) region, starting with version 2.2.2. This move enables U.S. customers with specific regulatory requirements to operate GitHub Enterprise within a federally compliant cloud environment, which aligns with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), and Department of Defense (DoD) Cloud Security Model (CSM) Levels 3-5. GovCloud serves as an isolated AWS environment for federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as contractors, researchers, and educational institutions. Users can begin with a 45-day free trial or migrate from existing GitHub Enterprise platforms to GovCloud. For additional assistance, users can visit the AWS GovCloud page or contact GitHub for support. Ben Balter, Chief of Staff for Security at GitHub, underscores his extensive experience in managing GitHub's enterprise and compliance offerings, as well as his efforts to promote open source practices in government organizations worldwide.

GitHub is celebrating Pride Week early with two events focused on the LGBTQ community, taking place on June 2nd and 3rd at their San Francisco headquarters. The first event is a special LGBTQ edition of Patchwork, a free hands-on workshop that requires no coding experience, with support from GitHub staff and Teagan Widmer from Refuge Restrooms. The second event is a Pride Celebration highlighting achievements in the LGBTQ tech community and featuring initiatives from organizations such as Trans*H4CK, Lesbians Who Tech, Maven, GaymerX, and oSTEM. Additionally, GitHub is launching its 2015 Pridetocat shirts, with proceeds benefiting Trans*H4CK, Lesbians Who Tech, and Maven. Both events are open to LGBTQ individuals and allies, providing opportunities to connect with others and celebrate diversity in tech.

GitHub has launched its Engineering Blog, offering insights into its infrastructure, development practices, and the experiences gained from operating the largest code collaboration platform globally. Readers can stay informed by following the Engineering Twitter account @GitHubEng for updates. The blog, introduced by Sam Lambert, aims to share valuable knowledge with its audience.

GitHub's new Engineering Blog offers insights into the practices, software, and engineering principles utilized by their team, aiming to share valuable knowledge with the community. Authored by engineers, the blog provides a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to run and build GitHub, emphasizing the importance of sharing expertise as a contribution to their community. Authored by Sam Lambert, the platform invites readers to explore and learn from the experiences and innovations of GitHub's engineering team.

GitHub has developed a specialized approach to browser monitoring, emphasizing security, privacy, and performance by using internal tools rather than third-party solutions. Due to restrictive Content Security Policies, GitHub cannot use many common third-party real-user monitoring tools, so they leverage an internal system built on open-source technologies like Graphite, Nagios, and D3 to collect and analyze browser performance metrics. These metrics include detailed browser page load timings using the Navigation Timing API and simulated load times for older browsers, enabling them to diagnose performance problems with granular data. Furthermore, they track JavaScript errors through an internal application called Haystack, filtering out errors unrelated to their code. This approach encourages collaboration across teams, allowing seamless integration of front-end monitoring metrics with backend and network stats, and facilitates the easy addition of new metrics. While the current system provides valuable insights, GitHub aims to enhance their monitoring by integrating alert systems to promptly address front-end performance issues.

Prepare for the future with GitHub's latest offerings, including the new Atom shirt and Atom Coasters, which are now available for purchase in the GitHub Shop. These items are designed for fans of the Atom text editor and its associated tools, providing both functional and collectible value. Authored by Ben Ogle, this announcement highlights the blend of utility and fandom, catering to users who appreciate the intersection of technology and personal expression.

Earlier this spring, a database cluster was upgraded to MySQL 5.6, introducing new features to the performance schema, which is a set of tables that track internal performance metrics. These enhancements provide insights into database operations, such as query execution and IO wait statistics, with new tables like table_io_waits_summary_by_index and events_statements_summary_by_digest offering valuable data on query performance and index use. By importing this data into a metrics system, the team was able to identify and address inefficiencies; for example, a single UPDATE query was initially responsible for over 25% of all updates on a critical table. After a simple code modification to update the health status of repositories only when necessary, the query's impact was reduced to less than 2%. Tools like the performance schema have proven useful for identifying and solving database bottlenecks, as demonstrated by the reduced load achieved through minor code adjustments. The experience underscores the potential benefits of leveraging such tools for performance optimization.

Git Merge recently took place in Paris at La Gaite Lyrique, marking a celebration of Git's ten-year anniversary with over 200 attendees. The event successfully raised more than $15,000 from ticket sales, which were fully donated to the Software Freedom Conservancy. The conference featured recorded sessions from expert speakers from companies such as Google, Microsoft, SAP, Twitter, GitHub, Atlassian, and Amazon, who discussed the usage of Git by teams and the challenges of implementing large Git deployments. Organizers expressed gratitude to participants and encouraged following @github on Twitter for updates on future events, including Git Merge 2016.

GitHub has introduced a range of merchandise featuring Octicons, which are the popular icons used within the platform, allowing enthusiasts to wear and showcase these icons in various forms. This new line of products is available for purchase in the GitHub Shop and is highlighted by Brandi Firestine, who shares the excitement about the availability of these items. The collection offers fans a fun and tangible way to express their affinity for GitHub through wearable and collectible items adorned with these beloved icons.

Patchwork is a series of informal, hands-on workshops hosted by GitHub, designed to help beginners learn Git and GitHub in a self-directed environment. These events, which have taken place worldwide, now have a dedicated online home at patchwork.github.io, where participants can access resources and view upcoming schedules. Upcoming events include Patchwork Irvine at UC-Irvine and Patchwork Detroit at Grand Circus, where attendees will be guided through the basics of Git and GitHub by GitHub staff and community mentors. The workshops aim to provide participants with practical experience, resulting in their first open source project and merged pull request, while mentors have the opportunity to guide future open source contributors. With a casual atmosphere and the support of a community mentor, participants are encouraged to learn at their own pace, gaining confidence to engage further in the open source community.

Communicating complex ideas that integrate code, data, and visualizations can be challenging, especially in real-time collaborations, which is a common issue for various professionals such as researchers, astronomers, and data scientists. Jupyter notebooks address this challenge by enabling the seamless combination of code, equations, text, and visualizations, facilitating the sharing of data-driven workflows. GitHub now enhances this experience by supporting the rendering of Jupyter notebooks directly on its platform, making it an ideal space for versioning and collaborating on data-intensive projects. With the integration of Git Large File Storage and Jupyter notebook support, GitHub has become an even more powerful tool for managing and sharing insights from data, with over 200,000 Jupyter notebooks already available on the platform. Users can easily begin by committing a .ipynb file to a repository or explore an inspiring gallery of Jupyter notebooks for ideas.

GitHub has expanded its features for showcasing open source projects on GitHub Pages by adding releases metadata, which allows users to easily display and link to the latest project versions, including release notes. This information is available in the site.github.releases namespace within Jekyll, leveraging the releases API. The initiative is part of GitHub’s broader commitment to enhancing the platform's usability and security, as exemplified by Ben Balter, Chief of Staff for Security at GitHub. Balter has played a significant role in developing features focused on community management, privacy, compliance, and open source workflows, having previously led efforts to promote open source adoption among government organizations worldwide.

One year after transitioning from a private alpha to an open-source project, Atom has experienced significant growth and improvement, fueled by an expanding base of contributors and users. The software's development has accelerated, overcoming major technical challenges, enhancing its performance and stability, and making daily strides in its capabilities. The collaborative efforts of developers worldwide have brought Atom closer to reaching its first major milestone, with the release of Atom 1.0 anticipated in the coming month. This milestone marks a vibrant year of progress and promises further advancements as the Atom community continues to expand.

The GitHub Organization audit log is a feature that provides a comprehensive record of actions taken by organization members, offering a valuable resource for reviewing specific activities or investigating suspicious behavior. This tool is particularly useful in legal contexts or for maintaining accurate records of organizational activities. Users can export their audit logs in JSON or CSV formats, enhancing accessibility and ease of analysis.