What Is GitHub?

GitHub is the largest code hosting website globally. It is a go-to service for developers, where you can post code sequences that become available to the GitHub community. One of the main aims of GitHub is to promote collaborative work and allow developers to work simultaneously on a project from anywhere in the world. In 2012, Microsoft purchased GitHub as the company had started extensively using the platform to publish open-source projects like Windows Calculator and Visual Studio. GitHub is built on top of Git, a software that tracks changes in content. Git was developed by Linus Torvalds, who also worked on creating the Linux operating system. 

GitHub is an extremely versatile tool that greatly boosts the productivity of developers worldwide. One of the main focuses during the development of GitHub was to facilitate an intuitive environment where developers can track changes along different versions of code-based projects. In order to provide flexibility to developers, GitHub is designed to support a wide array of different programming languages, file formats and features. The platform allows users to assign roles and editing privileges to other contributors. Additionally, GitHub lets developers ping each other with questions and participate in discussion boards, which also boosts the platform’s collaborative nature. 

When it comes to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, GitHub is an essential service. Many of the most popular blockchain-based projects are published on GitHub, allowing developers from all over the world to contribute to their code. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Stellar, Cardano and many other crypto projects are freely available on GitHub. In this sense, GitHub has been a great facilitator of the rise of the cryptocurrency industry. It allows contributors from all over the world to work collaboratively on blockchain developments. GitHub has also become a tool to evaluate interest in different projects — the more contributors there are on a project, the more interest it has garnered. 

Unfortunately, the open-source nature of GitHub leaves projects prone to malicious attacks. Users have attempted to take advantage of GitHub’s servers to set up crypto mining operations essentially for free. This is a big concern for the platform, which is why GitHub’s creators have taken steps to prevent such instances. To ensure the integrity and protection of the platform, only registered users with an active GitHub account have editing rights on the website. While anyone who visits GitHub can read through code and projects, only registered users have the right to edit. This measure was taken in order to offer users and publishers an increased level of security for their projects.