Navigating GitHub for meaningful communication about software platforms (with no intention of learning git or coding) – Part 1

Git is a programming language specifically for versioning code or any other text file. Rather than recording only incremental saves, like a version history on a document might do, git uses small changes (commits) and allows multiple people to work together by saving their own changes, sharing out changes for possible inclusion in a release, locating and incorporating other people's changes, and commenting on each change. Git is fairly complicated to learn and conceptually involves there being multiple realities for any piece of software, rather than a single version which changes over time. Git also involves leaving a comment on each saved commit to a file or set of files to explain why the change was made. These comments can be retrieved later when looking at a specific piece of code. Git is generally used for software development, communicating between software developers about software changes and versions of in-development software, and keeping notes on history, such as why a change was made. Generally, releases of software are not put out to the public through git, but rather are done through sets of static text files (i.e. a zip or tarball to download and install). Git is for a deep dive into a single platform or the history of a piece of software. Most people working with a software platform just want to use it and not take a deep dive into the inner workings. Each deep dive takes time, and for end users and organizations running many software programs and platforms, there isn't time for a deep dive into everything. For this reason, most releases of software that you would download and run to power a website are released as .zip files without git. Instead, git is for collaboration, new development, and deep dives into a single software platform. Think of git as, at heart, being about communication. A culture and series of formalities for talking to other people. Not a language for talking to computers.