We currently use Trello for organising and documenting the majority of stuff. Our Dev team, however, uses GitHub. Should we use GitHub for everything?
Contents
Long explanation
Why should we switch to only GitHub?
- Simplicity
Keeping everything in plain text makes everything simple. Everyone knows how to read a text file. Trello is overly complicated in comparison. - Choice
Using GitHub means that files can be edited on your own computer with whatever editor you prefer. From Notepad to Emacs and everything inbetween, you go for it. Trello, however, requires that you use the Trello app. - Barrier removal
As you may have seen, we have been able to automate the membership of our GitHub org. This is not as easy in Trello, so we are still stuck with manually adding people to it. If we were to use GitHub for everything, you would get access to everything as soon as you join Geek.Zone. We want to make it easy for everyone who wants to help Geek.Zone to succeed to be able to help Geek.Zone to succeed without barriers. You should be able to find a task that you are interested in and just crack on with it. Having to wait for someone to add you to Trello is rubbish. - Price
Though it started out with a very generous free tier, Trello has gradually reduced what one can do without forking over dosh. GitHub, however, has made a commitment to remaining free for open source organisations – and if they renege on that then we can jump ship easily, because all our stuff would be in plain text (as above). Moving from a propriatary platform is always a pain. - Transparency
GitHub keeps all versions of all our files, forever. You can go back in time and see what a file looked like n days ago and who made which edits and when. This is not possible in Trello. - Automation
Oddly enough in a platform built for Software Development, automation is tremendously easy in GitHub. For example, changes to a document can be spellchecked before they are published. The possiblities are endless. Trello, however, continues to add costs to their automation. - Kanban
The main reason we started with Trello initially was Kanban. GitHub has this. GitHub is free. - One ring to bind them.
It would be great to be able to tell everyone that we build all our stuff in a single place. The Dev team needs GitHub, so it would be great for everyone else to be able to join too. - FLOSS FTW
As an open organisation, it is not only important that we keep all of our stuff in the open, but also that we support free & libre tools. Git is that and our GitHub org is entirely open. - Community
Trello is not known as a community platform. GitHub is.
Why should we not switch to only GitHub?
- It’s a bit Dev-y
As you might expect from a platform that is aimed primarily at software developers, GitHub is very orientated around code. GitHub is actually great for any kind of file. Who knows, you might even find that GitHub is actually useful for your own non-dev related activities. - Git can seem daunting.
If you have never used it before, Git can seem a bit complicated. Then you realise that you can learn the vast majority in 100 seconds. - Migration is a pain
Yes, this will be a ballache, but it will be a one-time ballache. Once complete, it will make life easier for every member.
Appendix
Much of my above argument is inspired by The Unreasonable Effectiveness Of Plain Text. Give it a watch.
Cast your vote!
Have your say by voting in the discussion on our Discord.