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The unlikely tale of a coder tool that thought big and now aspires to reshape government.

ReadWriteBuilders is a series of interviews with developers, designers and other architects of the programmable future.

Its telling that GitHub, a startup that hosts software development projects, greets visitors in a replica Oval Office. Since CEO Tom Preston-Werner cofounded GitHub in 2008, the service has transformed from an obscure club for developers into an open-source coding free-for-all that even the US government is getting in on.

Today, Preston-Werner presides over a growing community centered on Github's basic servicerepositories for code that allow developers to easily collaborate while tracking changes. We talked about education for developers, diversity at work, and how a modern company based on hard-to-use free software called Git, which requires users to type in commands, took off in such a big way.

ReadWrite: Like many successful coders, youve conformed to the college drop-out stereotype. Is college necessary for people pursuing jobs in tech?

Tom Preston-Werner:I dont know that its necessary. I think it really depends on the individual. I think different people get different things out of going to college. I think the social experience is amazing, the ability to take risk and explore a broad set of topics is amazing. I went to college for two years and those two years completely changed my life. I think if I didnt go to college at all, Id be a different person.

I got a job during the summer after my sophomore year at a startup that was just beginning doing some Java development. I really enjoyed that environment, enjoyed working on a product and really trying to build something real with a team of people. And so when they offered me a job after the summer was over, I had a choice. I could go back to school for two years and then when I was done with that, I could go and look for a job that was similar to what I already had. Or I could just have that same job that I already wanted.

From that perspective I thought, I have some computer development background, I love this thing that Im working on, I can learn a lot doing it this way, and I would still be local to the college so I could still hang out with some of my friends from there. For me the decision made sense to stick around with the company, drop out of school, and just continue on that path. That was a decision that was individual for me. I cant sit here and say, College is pointless. You should not go to college. I dont think thats the truth. I think it really depends on each persons individual circumstance.

Theres a lot of learning material now. You can learn so much about development in college, but the thing thats so much harder to learn outside of college is everything else. All of the other stuff you learn from being in college. So I still found the college experience to be super useful.

See the original post:
GitHub's Tom Preston-Werner: How We Went Mainstream