GitHub - 2 views
-
Christopher Clarke on 17 Apr 10GitHub is a source code management repository host, wiki and issue tracker (GitHub Inc., 2010) that enables software developers to collaborate in the development of web and application software as primary focus but it is useful for collaborating on books and other activities of a text-based nature. GitHub is built around the Git source code management tool which is a distributed version control system developed by Linus Torvalds and hundreds of other developers (Chacon, 2010). The software allows developers to track changes between versions and other milestones. The changes are shown in the form a 'diff' that can be created between any two revisions (Git Diff, 2010). Projects hosted on GitHub can be public or private. Public and open source projects are free while commercial users and those not willing to share source code need to pay a monthly fee. In a public project, the source code stored in the repository is available to the public who can easily fork or submit patches to the project. Private projects are completely hidden from the public and can only be accessed by specifically nominated collaborators. The private project is ideal for organisations, which wish to exploit the power of GitHub but do not or cannot release their source code to the public for various reasons.
-
Christopher Clarke on 17 Apr 10GitHub includes an issue tracker which can be used to track bugs, assign tasks and generally keep track of what needs to be done to get the software to a state as desired by the developers and other stake holders in a project (GitHub Inc., 2010). Issues can be tagged with labels to indicate what they contain (bug, enhancement, tasks, etcetera) and to specify which version they are relevant to (Preston-Werner, 2009). For example, whether or not they need to be completed before it is possible to release version 8.9.2 or need to be ready for the 9.0 release. These same labels can be used to assign an issue to a specific person (Preston-Werner, 2009) so that they are made aware that they have been delegated the task of dealing with the issue. GitHub also includes a wiki that can be used to collaborate with other members of a project and provide documentation for the project and its output.
-
Christopher Clarke on 19 Apr 10Git Diff. (2010). Retrieved April 18, 2010, from learn.github: http://learn.github.com/p/diff.html Chacon, S. (2010). About Git. Retrieved April 16, 2010, from Git - Fast Version Control System: http://git-scm.com/about GitHub Inc. (2010). Secure source code hosting and collaborative development - GitHub. Retrieved April 18, 2010, from GitHub: http://github.com Preston-Werner, T. (2009, April 15). GitHub Issue Tracker! Retrieved April 18, 2010, from GitHub Blog: http://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-tracker Wesley, R. (1998). Version Control and the Single Developer. Retrieved April 18, 2010, from MacTech: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.06/VersionControlAndTheDeveloper/index.html