GitHub and Rails - 10 Years Together

by Tal Safran

In the video titled "GitHub and Rails - 10 Years Together" presented by Tal Safran at RailsConf 2018, the speaker discusses the evolution and collaboration between GitHub and the Ruby on Rails framework over the last decade.

Key points covered include:
- Personal Story: Tal shares his experience of starting at GitHub, particularly his initial encounter with Rails migrations, which encapsulate GitHub's purpose of fostering collaboration.
- Historical Context: In its infancy, GitHub launched concurrently with Rails transitioning to a newer version control system, Git, marking the beginning of their intertwined relationship.
- Growth of Rails and GitHub: Tal highlights the progression of Rails from version 1.2 to the current upgrades towards Rails 5, detailing important features introduced along the way like Scriptaculous and the asset pipeline.
- Internal Applications: He mentions various Ruby and Rails applications utilized within GitHub, including public-facing platforms like GitHub Jobs and Gist, as well as internal tools.
- Community Contributions: Tal emphasizes the significant number of contributions made to Rails over the years, with 3,500 contributions facilitating its development and improvement. He acknowledges the efforts of both past and present GitHub employees who have actively participated in Rails' core development.

- RailsConf Engagement: The speaker reflects on GitHub's ongoing involvement with RailsConf and the contributions made in the form of discussions and workshops by GitHub developers.
- Celebration and Reflection: Celebrating GitHub's tenth anniversary, Tal encourages viewers to visit a dedicated website detailing their journey and the vital role of the Rails framework in that timeline.
- Community Appreciation: He concludes with a message of gratitude towards the community for their support and contributions to both Rails and GitHub, indicating the self-reinforcing relationship between users and repositories on the platform, and optimistically looking forward to the next ten years.

Overall, the talk showcases the deep-rooted connection between GitHub and Rails, marked by collaboration and community contributions, underscoring their mutual influence and shared history.

00:00:11.570 Good morning, everyone. My name is Tal Safran, and I am a developer at GitHub. I want to start your day with a little story.

00:00:19.770 We've all been there before: starting a new Rails project and creating a migration. This is something I found particularly memorable when I joined GitHub about six months ago. As I was new, I spent some time exploring and getting familiar with the platform.

00:00:31.260 When I first saw the migration, I was really moved. It involved creating users and repositories, fundamentally capturing everything GitHub was about to become: a hub for millions of developers collaborating on software for their work, personal projects, and, of course, open-source endeavors.

00:00:45.809 When GitHub began ten years ago, Rails was only three years old, at version 1.2. The website featured a gallery showcasing some prominent users of Rails, including well-known names like Basecamp and Campfire, as well as Shopify and OTO, the podcasting platform that predated Twitter.

00:01:01.649 In mid-2008, a significant announcement was made on the Rails blog: Rails was transitioning from Subversion to a newer version control system called Git, which had been released just a year after Rails. More notably, Rails was moving to a new platform called GitHub. This migration aligned with GitHub's official public launch, just two days after the Rails announcement.

00:01:30.990 At that time, Rails was the top repository on GitHub, and the community was primarily made up of Ruby developers. From the beginning, GitHub and Rails shared a symbiotic relationship: GitHub was built using Rails, while Rails was developed openly on GitHub.

00:01:48.180 Fast forward to today, we started with version 1.2 and have gone through every major Rails upgrade. We’ve witnessed everything from the introduction of Scriptaculous to the asset pipeline and strong parameters. Currently, we are upgrading to Rails 5. I want to give a huge shout-out to Eileen, who is about to speak, for her assistance with our recent upgrades.

00:02:34.280 Internally, we have many Ruby and Rails applications, including public applications like GitHub Jobs and Gist, as well as dozens of internal apps used for various purposes such as spam detection and exception monitoring. In my first six months here, I’ve interacted with at least ten different Rails projects. We truly appreciate Rails and Ruby at GitHub.

00:03:06.150 Many GitHubbers have contributed to Rails; in fact, 59 people, both past and present, have worked on Rails, with several becoming core members. GitHub has been a part of RailsConf since its first year, marking over ten years of involvement.

00:03:35.070 RailsConf 2008 featured several talks, including a panel with all three GitHub developers, who were the founders and still had day jobs at that time. This week, we have three GitHub developers speaking: yesterday, Terry gave a workshop on abuse vectors, and Eileen is up next. Tomorrow, Tenderlove will deliver the closing keynote. Be sure to check out their talks!

00:04:19.500 We recently celebrated our tenth birthday and put together a small website highlighting our journey. Rails has played a big part in that, so I encourage you to check it out at github.com/ten. The Rails project continues to be one of the most popular projects on GitHub.

00:04:38.620 Throughout its history, over 3,500 people have contributed to Rails, resulting in an astounding number of issues and pull requests that have been closed. I want to take this opportunity to personally thank everyone who has contributed to Rails over the years, whether by submitting an issue or writing code. Your efforts have made Rails and GitHub better not only as software but also as a community.

00:05:06.450 In many ways, the intersection of users and repositories on GitHub embodies our mission—it's where people and code come together. It's been an incredible ten years, and here's to ten more! Lastly, as Shirley mentioned, we have a booth with a coffee bar and plenty of cute Octocat stickers. I believe we have over a dozen GitHubbers here, so feel free to come and say hello. Thank you!