I normally consider myself pretty handy with computers, but I’m no programmer. I know GitHub is primarily for programmers, but I often find GitHub pages when looking for specific programs, and always end up walking away frustrated because anything I try to download just gives me a whole bunch of unfamiliar file-names and what I’m guessing is some uncompiled data? I really don’t know, and it just confuses me what I’m supposed to do in order to actually execute files I find on GitHub? I’ve heard something about Python and something about Cmd (Is that Windows Command Line Prompt?) and whenever I look up tutorials or guides for GitHub I find primer videos for programmers, not user friendly newbie guides for people who just want to download a piece of software.
In: Technology
> anything I try to download just gives me a whole bunch of unfamiliar file-names and what I’m guessing is some uncompiled data?
The thing is, GitHub is intended for programmers to share and manage source code: uncompiled computer instructions like you note. it’s not really intended for end users to get finalized software, and a lot of what you find there is going to need to be compiled before you can use it.
How you then compile or execute the files you find on GitHub can’t be put in to some global tutorial, because it depends on the exact project and the programming language being used in it. Imagine that you’d try to find a tutorial for how to cook and bake every recipe you could possibly find in a cook book. Some recipes only require you to mix things in a bowl and serve. Others require three pans and an oven. Some recipes will call for weeks worth of fermenting different ingredients. Some need you to own a blender, while others will call for a crock-pot. Trying to condense every possible recipe down to a single tutorial is a fools errant.
If you find something on GitHub you like try googling the exact name of the software and see if you can’t find a pre-packaged version, read the description for the GitHub repository to see if it explains what to do, or see if anything is listed under the “Releases” section of that repository. Beyond that giving exact instructions beyond “Google the language being used and learn how to execute that language” becomes rather difficult.
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