At Open Knowledge we’ve started running our (internal) skill share sessions again. Today’s was a very useful introduction to Github and Jekyll. GitHub is a web-based Git repository hosting service that we use a lot at Open Knowledge, Jekyll is a “simple, blog-aware, static site generator” and has recently been used to create our revamped Open Data Handbook.
The full video of the session is available on YouTube and embedded below.
Our host (Paul Walsh) took us through what a content management system on the web is, the limitations of some services like WordPress (limited control of presentation and data, security, maintenance and cost) and the benefits of using Git (open by default, zero maintenance costs, lots of scope to customise) for static sites. His slides are available here.
Key terms in Git hub
We then had a go at creating some Mark up (i.e. content) and a pull request and using some Jekyl metadata.
I am using Git hub to create pages to store the data visualisations I am creating for the PASTEUR4OA project – so all very useful.
Thanks to Paul Walsh and Mor Rubinstein for organising and running the session.
Useful links
- Github: http://github.com/
- Jekyll: http://jekyllrb.com/
- Guide to Markup: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax
- Contributing to the Open Data Handbook: http://opendatahandbook.org/contribute/
- Github app for mac: https://mac.github.com/
- Sourcetree – another Github app for mac (more techy): https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/
Ramblings of a Remote Worker 