February 2018 Summaries

PHP developers can now enhance their code review process using the file finder, which allows them to navigate directly to changed methods and functions in pull requests. By searching for terms like "function" or the name of a specific changed function, developers can access a filtered view highlighting the most significant parts of a pull request, streamlining the review process. This feature aims to increase efficiency within the PHP community, and feedback can be provided through a help form.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to repeal net neutrality regulations, sparking reactions from the tech industry and internet users. Following the FCC's order, published in the Federal Register, the U.S. Congress has a 60-day window to potentially reverse this decision, starting with a Senate vote where 50 senators have pledged support for net neutrality. Advocates emphasize the importance of net neutrality for developers, as it prevents internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or charging for access, thereby fostering innovation and opportunity. The text urges U.S. citizens to contact their representatives and highlights the global significance of U.S. net neutrality regulations, warning that their repeal could impact global internet policies. It also encourages involvement in internet policy discussions worldwide and stresses the importance of maintaining net neutrality and other pro-competitive policies to ensure an open internet.

Patchwork is an event in Stockholm designed for beginners to learn Git and GitHub, with experienced mentors available to guide them through various modules such as GitHub 101, 102, and 103. The workshop offers a relaxed and informal environment, encouraging self-directed learning without the pressure of formal tutorials or extensive note-taking. Participants will have the opportunity to make a merged pull request, gain a contribution square on their GitHub graph, and build confidence in engaging with the open-source community. The event takes place on March 15, 2018, at Klarna, a venue that is accessible and inclusive, with food and refreshments provided for attendees. Both attendees and mentors are encouraged to RSVP, and those new to GitHub are advised to create an account prior to the event to ensure a smooth experience.

GitHub Marketplace has introduced new data views and visualizations to help developers understand how users interact with their apps, thereby enhancing the user experience. The new "Insights" tab on the Marketplace dashboard provides metrics such as landing page visits and the impact of marketing campaigns, enabling developers to make informed decisions and track app performance following updates. These insights also support the offering of free trials and promotions, empowering developers to use data strategically to advance their apps. For those interested in exploring new tools, GitHub Marketplace offers various apps for tracking dependencies, deploying software, and managing projects.

Campus Advisors is a training program designed to empower teachers to proficiently use Git and GitHub, enhancing their ability to teach students with real-world tools and methodologies. Inspired by innovative educators in the Education Community who integrate open source projects into their teaching, the program offers a comprehensive curriculum developed in collaboration with experienced educators. It consists of four online modules addressing Git basics, individual and group work strategies, and opportunities for encouraging self-directed learning. Upon completing the courses, teachers can become certified GitHub Campus Advisors, positioning them as advocates for utilizing real-world tools in education. Additionally, certified advisors receive resources to support other educators in adopting GitHub, fostering a culture of technological advancement and collaboration within educational institutions.

Development teams often face challenges in tracking GitHub activities within Slack channels as their teams grow, prompting a collaboration between GitHub and Slack to introduce a new app aimed at enhancing productivity by integrating GitHub activities directly into Slack. This integration allows users to subscribe to GitHub repositories via Slack commands, providing automatic updates for pull requests, issues, code reviews, and deployments, while offering previews of linked GitHub pages for immediate context. Although currently limited to public repositories, support for private repositories is forthcoming, and the open-source nature of the integration allows for community contributions and feature requests. Future updates promise expanded functionalities, such as enabling actions on pull requests and issues directly within Slack, further streamlining team workflows. To encourage new users, Slack offers a $100 credit to help kickstart team communication, emphasizing the synergy between Slack and GitHub to optimize work processes.

GitHub Desktop 1.1, a fresh release of the Electron app, introduces several new features and enhancements that streamline GitHub workflows on desktop. Notably, the branch selector now includes open pull requests, simplifying the process of checking out pull requests as local branches. The app automatically manages the necessary steps for handling pull requests, such as adding remotes and setting upstream branches. Commit status integration provides an overview of which pull requests are passing or need further work, while the co-authoring feature allows for easy attribution of collaborative efforts. Additionally, syntax highlighting for diffs in various languages enhances code review processes. The open-source nature of GitHub Desktop has led to significant community contributions, with 62 improvements from 32 contributors being integrated since the 1.0 release.

GitHub has permanently discontinued support for several outdated cryptographic standards, specifically TLSv1, TLSv1.1, diffie-hellman-group1-sha1, and diffie-hellman-group14-sha1, affecting all HTTPS and SSH connections to both github.com and api.github.com. The removal of these weak cryptographic protocols, aimed at enhancing security, was initially announced last year, with a definitive timeline provided three weeks ago. Users encountering any issues or requiring assistance are encouraged to contact GitHub for support. The announcement was made by Patrick Toomey.

Enhancements to GitHub's labeling system aim to improve organization and productivity by allowing users to include emojis, descriptions, and search capabilities. Emojis can be added to labels for expressive communication, while descriptions provide additional context, aiding contributors in selecting the appropriate labels for issues or pull requests. The newly introduced search function on the "Labels" page enables easier discovery of specific labels, and filtering by description is possible in the sidebar. A preview feature allows users to visualize label changes before saving, ensuring the desired appearance. API and Enterprise support for these features is anticipated soon.

Growing tech communities across Africa, particularly in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, are propelling the continent's digital revolution, driven by increased internet and mobile access, favorable tech policies, and improved infrastructure. Nigeria, the continent's largest economy, is emerging as a tech hub due to its youthful population, with half of its 182 million people under 30, and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Nigerian startups are thriving in sectors like fintech, job training, agriculture, travel, and ecommerce, addressing infrastructure challenges and attracting significant foreign investment. Notable companies such as Flutterwave and Paystack are streamlining digital banking, while Andela trains developers for global engineering roles. The Nigerian government's support through tech-friendly policies is vital for sustaining growth, with officials recognizing the importance of governance and innovation in technology's future role on the continent. These efforts are complemented by a rising number of tech hubs, meetups, and conferences that provide training and skill-building opportunities, fueling the momentum of tech development in Nigeria and beyond.

GitHub is set to deprecate anonymous gist creation in 30 days due to the high volume of spam associated with this feature, despite its utility for quickly sharing code snippets. Although this decision follows considerable deliberation, users can still access existing anonymous gists and are encouraged to create GitHub accounts to continue benefiting from gist creation. The deprecation process will begin on March 19, 2018, at 19:00 UTC, when anonymous gist creation via the web and API will be disabled. Users are advised to refer to the documentation for more information on creating gists.

The first Release Radar of 2018 showcases a variety of innovative tools catering to different technology needs. Osquery 3.0 offers SQL-powered operating system monitoring that is both scalable and privacy-conscious, used by entities like GitHub and Palantir for security purposes. Godot 3.0 is highlighted as a robust open-source game engine for 2D and 3D development, noted for its extensive tools and user-friendly environment. Carbon 2.0 enhances the aesthetic appeal of source code images, making them more attractive for sharing. Detectron, released by Facebook's AI Research team, provides advanced object detection capabilities, while Face Alignment 1.0 focuses on detecting facial landmarks in both 2D and 3D. Spaceship 3.0 offers a minimalist Zsh prompt that is highly customizable. These releases underline the continued innovation and collaboration within the open-source community.

An amicus brief was filed by a group of technology companies, including GitHub, to support San Francisco’s and Santa Clara County’s efforts to block Executive Order 13768, which aims to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities. These jurisdictions, which limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, host nearly all U.S. technology hubs. The brief argues that the order contradicts the values of innovation and community in tech sectors, threatens the provision of essential services in major U.S. innovation hubs, and compromises city safety, thereby diminishing the attractivity of Silicon Valley and similar areas. It also highlights that the order could negatively impact global software development by reducing opportunities for collaboration, which contradicts GitHub’s mission of fostering inclusive and innovative communities. The technology sector is encouraged to support inclusive organizations like the ACLU to address these interconnected global challenges and continue building inclusive communities.

Dan Wallach's third programming course in the computer science major at Rice University emphasizes mastering Java programming, software design, and long-lasting concepts over tools, using Java8, IntelliJ, and GitHub for a test-driven development workflow. Transitioning from Subversion to GitHub with Travis CI, Wallach sought a scalable, reliable solution for managing student assignments and tests, noting that GitHub's commercial uptime supported his needs. The course structure encourages gradual learning, starting with filling in code gaps and progressing to building applications from previous work. Despite recognizing the collaborative potential of pair programming, Wallach opts for solo work to help students grasp version control systems like Git, believing it prepares them better for future teamwork. Wallach contributes to the GitHub Education community by sharing scripts that streamline class workflows and support academic integrity, and his approach has reportedly equipped students for professional environments by focusing on skills with enduring relevance.

In 2017, GitHub connected 24 million developers globally, enhancing collaboration on over 25 million repositories, with trends indicating growing interest in cross-platform development, deep learning, and coding skills enhancement. Projects like Angular/Angular-cli, Facebook/React, and Electron/Electron saw increased contributions, while deep learning projects like TensorFlow and Keras gained significant attention. Developers focused on learning and improving coding skills, with resources such as Chalarangelo/30-seconds-of-code and jwasham/coding-interview-university being popular for coding practices and interview preparation. These trends were identified through analyzing activity metrics such as contributors, visits, and new stars, revealing vibrant communities and diverse creative projects. For further insights into GitHub's community activities from September 2016 to September 2017, including top contributors and trending projects, readers are encouraged to explore additional resources like GitHub's report "The State of the Octoverse" and Felipe Hoffa’s analysis on Medium.

In anticipation of enhancing security protocols, several weak cryptographic standards were scheduled for deprecation, as announced last year, with an update provided later to facilitate client transition. Although the original cutoff date was set for February 1, 2018, the schedule was extended by one week, with the planned disabling of TLSv1, TLSv1.1, diffie-hellman-group1-sha1, and diffie-hellman-group14-sha1 algorithms on February 8, 2018, impacting all HTTPS and SSH connections to GitHub. These algorithms were to be disabled temporarily for one hour on February 8 at 19:00 UTC, and then permanently on February 22, 2018, at the same time, to ensure a smooth transition for users. Further information was made available on the Engineering Blog, as communicated by Patrick Toomey.

GitHub's topic pages serve as a valuable resource for discovering repositories aligned with various interests, such as Chrome extensions and web application frameworks like React, while also offering descriptions, related articles, and suggestions for further exploration. These pages are open for contributions from anyone, encouraging both new and experienced contributors to enhance the context and information available on topics that currently lack depth. By contributing to these pages, individuals can engage in open-source projects without needing to write code, making it an ideal opportunity for a first contribution or participation in initiatives like Open Source Friday.

In a move to enhance security, GitHub announced the deprecation of several weak cryptographic standards, specifically TLSv1, TLSv1.1, and certain Diffie-Hellman algorithms, with a phased disabling beginning on February 8, 2018, and permanent cessation on February 22, 2018. The transition, affecting web, API, SSH, and git connections, is expected to impact a small fraction of older systems that still rely on the outdated algorithms. To facilitate the transition, GitHub will temporarily disable these algorithms for an hour to prompt updates, granting a two-week grace period for systems to upgrade their cryptographic libraries. Notable affected clients include older versions of Git-Credential-Manager-for-Windows, Git on certain Red Hat releases, and Java releases prior to JDK 8, all of which require updates to ensure compatibility with the newer TLSv1.2 protocol. Users of these systems are advised to update their software to avoid disruptions, with specific guidance provided for Visual Studio users to ensure they receive the necessary updates for continued access to GitHub services.