Fugly and distracting!
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Why the downvotes?! Okay, I use some strong language, because while Bitbucket is introducing Projects [0], GitHub is working on bells and whistles! In the time of Medium.com, we know there are better ways to allow formatting controls!
I understand GitHub is in desperation to go beyond programmers, but this is a ridiculous expansion goal!
> Why the downvotes?!
Probably because of the needless profanity and lack of an explanation for your statement (my best guess, I did not downvote you).
> bells and whistles
These kind of features are completely unnecessary for developers, but are useful for the less tech-savvy team members. The markup is not hidden, so it provides a way to learn some basic MarkDown (good!). That in turn improves communication, which improves your product.
Beware of the fallacy of believing that because someone finds the time to polish their product or add seemingly simple features, they don't invest resources in more complex features or research and development. These are not mutually exclusive goals, even though resources are by definition limited.
It's a pipe dream - only technical people use GitHub and this is just a distraction. Instead of trying to keep their core audience in a world with a growing number of alternatives, they are trying to do the impossible - make this a Google Drive. That's why I on purpose used "fugly", because I'm tired of relying so much on unreliable people. But this will change.
Many technical companies use GitHub, and many employees of same are not particularly technical.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Any data to back your bold statement with?
Where was your data to back up when you said "only technical people" use GitHub?
Where's your data to back your unpopular statement? Mine is the obvious conclusion based on wide observation since the early days of GitHub till now.
While Markdown isn't difficult, it isn't someone everybody is automatically aware of. This makes discovering and learning it even easier, both for newbie technical users and non-technical people that e.g. have to use GitHub to report issues, work on docs, ...
Yes, you might call it "bells and whistles" or "polish", but that polish is one of the reasons that GitHub is where it is (instead of Bitbucket, despite Bitbucket having the better free offering etc). They've gotten were they are by being easy to get started.
GitHub is here because they've pioneered some stuff and people use it by inertia. And inertia doesn't last forever!