GitHub revolutionized software development by responding to a deep
desire to share information. But calling it just “sharing” does a disservice to
the tools GitHub provides: these tools remove barriers to
communication and streamline workflows. These tools also arose at
exactly the moment when the information technology revolution forced
companies to adopt more open technologies that assisted an emerging remote
workforce.
Gists service part of this need: they permit intimate code
sharing and reuse, refactoring, and experimentation in a way not served by the
heavyweight tools predating it. In this chapter we will explore using
gists to share code, and then build an application hosted as a
gist that uses the Gist API.
Easy Code Sharing
Gists are straightforward to create. You copy a snippet
of code into the large text box in the center, optionally enter in a
description or filename, and then choose between a public or private
gist. Once your gist has been created you are presented with a URL to
share. Gists autodetect the language in most cases and syntax
highlight according to the language when displayed as in Figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1. Documenting JSON using a gist
There are other services that do this: pastebin was the first, and there are many others that offer variances on code sharing. But gists by GitHub are not simply a pasting service. Gists ...
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