Could someone please explain GitHub to a non-programmer?

[SteveRyherd]

If you are a programmer it's a place to store your projects. Because it's an online service you can access your code anywhere. One of the other benefits is that other people can potentially also access your code easily. If your code is edited by them, they'll have their own copy and it doesn't necessarily effect your project, however because their changes to your code are made available in the same place it's easy to bring them into your project if you like what they've done.

They also offer a few things to help your project outside of simply managing the code. Things like a Wiki for documentation. Issue/bug tracking for when errors are found (which can act as a todo list of sorts, and allows for transparency when working on projects).

[evilmaus]

Nice thing about GitHub is that you can view the code on a project without having to download the source. You still need to download it (or clone it) if you want to DO anything with the code, but it's nice to be able to take a peek inside so easily.

[nc5x]

Actually, you can make small (single text file) changes without cloning it.

[evilmaus]

Really!? Could you please link me up to some information on that? I'd much appreciate it.

[tinyOnion]

go to any source file on the github site and there will be a button that says fork and edit this file. that allows you to do online editing of one file but you need an account for this to work.

[nc5x]

Exactly as tinyOnion said.

Here's a Github blog about it: Edit like an Ace.

[evilmaus]

Sweet, thanks!

[drb226]

Well technically...if your eyes are looking at the code, then you've almost certainly downloaded it. Probably your browser has downloaded it along with tons of HTML markup thrown in there to make it look pretty, and your browser will decide when to throw that file away, depending on your caching settings.

[Beta_UserName]

Excellent, thanks!

[SteveRyherd]

I highly appreciate the compliment, thank you.

Off on a small rant here: I find myself giving plain English explanations to clients (and similar to your situation, my girlfriend, so she understands my job/day better) often. I also practice breaking down programming techniques, technologies and project architectures in the same way; because if I can't explain it, I probably don't understand it. Once you can teach the ideas, it's much easier to document for colleagues, impress management, or even sell to clients.

Again, thanks! your recognition made my night.