Teaching GitHub for Poets - VelocityConf 2015

At Kickstarter, we’ve created a GitHub for Poets training class to introduce all employees to our engineering process and the codebase that runs kickstarter.com, regardless of their role or department.

The one-hour class introduces attendees to making branches, commits, and pull requests using the GitHub Flow in a web browser. It’s a simple workflow, but the effects are profound.

GitHub for Poets training has resulted in streamlined communication with our product team, and has demystified software development. Other teams are increasingly able to make copy changes in our code. People love seeing their handiwork live on the site.

Since introducing GitHub for Poets:

- The Customer Support team can seamlessly improve messaging on the site in response to tickets
- The Editorial team can quickly fix typos
- The HR Director can directly update job listings

Kickstarter’s culture has strengthened as teams seek the transparency, inclusivity, and contextual history afforded by Git for all their work. Internal documentation moved to Git repos. Policy discussions moved from email to pull requests.

In this talk, I’ll discuss tips for teaching a successful GitHub for Poets class, and the processes you should have in place to allow your staff to learn your codebase without compromising site reliability or security.

Source: http://velocityconf.com/devops-web-performance-2015/public/schedule/detail/41347

Transcript

1. Teaching GitHub for Poets Aaron Suggs
2. Aaron Suggs ktheory Lead Ops Engineer
3. Aaron Suggs ktheory Lead Ops Engineer
4. helps creative projects come to life
5. 1. What is G4P 2. Why do it 3. How to do it Super-quick outline:
6. What is G4P
7. What is GitHub for Poets? 1.Live demo of a copy change 2.Class open to all staff 3.Intro to dev tools + process
8. 1. Live demo a copy change Using GitHub Flow in browser What is GitHub for Poets?
9. 2. Class open to all staff What is GitHub for Poets?
10. 3. Intro to dev tools + process How we test and deploy What is GitHub for Poets?
11. Everyone can commit?
14. Why do G4P
16. • Lightweight process
17. • Lightweight process • Avoid building a CMS
18. • Lightweight process • Avoid building a CMS (Practical reasons)
19. Cultural values
20. Version control is communication
21. Version control is transparency
22. Pull requests are consensus
23. Transparency + Consensus = Blamelessness
24. Increase your impact
25. How to do G4P
26. How to do GitHub for Poets? 1.Explain git branches + commits 2.Explain file layout 3.Always Be Learning
27. Always Be Learning
28. Pro Tip™: Safe deploy process
29. Pro Tip™: Safe deploy process • A git branch of your own
30. Pro Tip™: Safe deploy process • A git branch of your own • Tests & continuous integration
31. Pro Tip™: Safe deploy process • A git branch of your own • Tests & continuous integration • Deployer checks what's getting deployed
32. Pro Tip™: explain what this means
33. (Live demo) github.com/ktheory/velocityconf
34. “They’ll will break the site”
35. “It’s a security liability”
36. Meet the Poets
37. Meet the Poets
38. 29 poets have made 1139 commits
46. Thank you ktheory