This document provides tips for using GitHub effectively to share projects and build developer communities. It recommends making a project site to provide essential information for new users, releasing projects regularly to affirm they can be used and allow others to build upon the work, and maintaining an open and helpful approach to contributions from newcomers to encourage participation and learning. The focus should be optimizing for users rather than just developers. GitHub projects have a low barrier to entry, so guidance and dividing work into approachable chunks is important to welcome new contributors.

1. Andy Lester
@petdance
Projects,
Community
and Github

2. What we’ll cover
• Presenting your project to the world
• Managing the development process
• Side trip to diversity
• Your experiences

3. Why to stay
• Perspectives on community & you!
• Adorable Octocat art!
• Tips for patch management!
• Star Trek references!
• Release management!
• Sweaty Steve Ballmer!

4. Who is Github for?

5. Developers,
developers,
developers,
developers,

6. Github is not
for end users.

7. Whoo! Exposure!

10. Github is for those
who like to
build from source.

13. Your users
probably don't.

15. To the newcomer,
the source tree
is unimportant.

16. To the newcomer,
the source tree
is unimportant.

17. Just because we’ve
published code doesn’t
mean we’re done.

18. What's it do?
What's it look like?
Do I want to use it?

19. That means:
Screenshots and
installation

20. Make a project site!

21. Make a project site.

22. Make a project site.

23. Make a project site.
• Answer the newcomer's questions.
• Aimed toward the end users.
• Users who are not as ninja as you.
• Make download + install incredibly obvious.
• It can be on github, but not the default
github project page.

24. Get your own domain.
• Not tied to github, in case things change.
• $10/year = dirt-cheap investment
• Which is easier to remember?
• http://github.com/petdance/ack
• http://betterthangrep.com/

25. Visible, documented
releases matter!

26. Releases matter!

27. Release for simplicity

28. Release for simplicity
• Releases are an affirmation: "Yes, you can
use this."

29. Release for simplicity
• Releases are an affirmation: "Yes, you can
use this."
• Single, verifiable tarball.

30. Release for simplicity
• Releases are an affirmation: "Yes, you can
use this."
• Single, verifiable tarball.
• Nobody wants to run autoconf.

31. Release for simplicity
• Releases are an affirmation: "Yes, you can
use this."
• Single, verifiable tarball.
• Nobody wants to run autoconf.
• Users expect them.

32. Release for history
and visibility

33. Release for history
and visibility
• Lets others build on your work.

34. Release for history
and visibility
• Lets others build on your work.
• Maintain an accurate, human-written
changelog of all releases.

35. Release for history
and visibility
• Lets others build on your work.
• Maintain an accurate, human-written
changelog of all releases.
• A dump of commit messages is not a
changelog!

36. Optimize for your
users' sake,
not your own.

37. The needs of the many
outweigh the needs of
the few, or the one.

38. The needs of the users
outweigh the needs of
the project team.

40. About me

41. About @petdance
• Perl guy: ack, prove, WWW::Mechanize
• Programming for money since the 1980s
• I sling PHP for B2B web apps for a midsize
corporation.
• From the midwest, Chicago area

43. A little bit about ack

44. Github projects have a
low barrier to entry.

45. The good part:
Anyone can do it.

46. The bad part:
Anyone can do it.

47. Newbies expect their
changes to be accepted.

48. "Can't you just...?"

49. Be gentle in your
rejections.
Brevity may be
perceived as harsh.

50. That box is too small.

51. You want to accept
changes from newbies if
at all possible.

52. Don't reject patches
just because of...
• No tests
• No documentation
• Not following code standards
• Those can all be fixed!

53. The other day I got this
in the mail...

55. I am happy to suggest use cases that I
have found useful. What is the best way -
to mailing list, on a wiki somewhere,
email to you.
Don't quite feel up to being more
proactive. I am dyslexic and find writing
stuff hard (and finishing of writing etc).

56. Make a project guide

57. Make a project guide
• Small chunks of the elephant

58. Make a project guide
• Small chunks of the elephant
• "TODO: Better error handling" is not
helpful to the newbie.

59. Make a project guide
• Small chunks of the elephant
• "TODO: Better error handling" is not
helpful to the newbie.
• Project direction

60. Make a project guide
• Small chunks of the elephant
• "TODO: Better error handling" is not
helpful to the newbie.
• Project direction
• Coding standards

61. Make a project guide
• Small chunks of the elephant
• "TODO: Better error handling" is not
helpful to the newbie.
• Project direction
• Coding standards
• Workflow + branch strategy

62. Monitor your network

64. Thank you
• Put yourself in the newbie's shoes.
• Make a project home page outside Github.
• Visible, documented releases matter.
• Optimize for others, not yourself.
• Use Github to encourage your
community, not fend it off.
• Thank you for listening and
for Githubbing.