GitHub, Glitch and the Future of Social Coding

GitHub + Microsoft = Good 👍

Let’s put it short and sweet: Microsoft buying GitHub is likely to be good news for developers. There’s no better evidence of how Microsoft has been revitalized under the leadership of Satya Nadella than to point to bold moves like this, which would have seemed incredible (and also not seemed credible!) in the past. Old-timers can remember when Microsoft was often described as the Evil Empire, but their moves to embrace open source and non-Windows platforms have seemed sincere and sustained, and we’re happy to see that flourish.

Similarly, GitHub has earned its place as an indispensable developer platform through breaking ground as the first large-scale social coding experience over 10 years ago. Having strong leadership from Microsoft can only be good news, especially for developers using Microsoft platforms.

But if we have a concern, it’s that there hasn’t been a huge leap forward in social coding in the last decade. We simply haven’t seen enough innovation in recent years in the way that coders collaborate, and since every developer will be thinking about these big ideas right now, we wanted to paint a picture of what social coding could look like over the next decade. A lot of people will (understandably) be thinking about backing up their GitHub projects just in case, and we think you should use that opportunity to look at Glitch and consider if it’s time to rethink traditional views on version control entirely.

(Spoilers: If you’re using Glitch, you’ve already got a preview of where we’re headed. If you’re not, here’s how to import a GitHub repo to Glitch. If you have a Node app that you’ve built or like to use, start with that!)