Future-proofing your development: 5 ways to keep your skills fresh 🌱🍃

You’ve got to be a lifelong learner to keep up with the rapidly evolving world of software development. 🎓 As new technologies emerge and old ones fade, developers are constantly challenged to adapt and innovate.

In this newsletter, we’ll highlight some key trends you’ll want to consider exploring, as well as actionable insights and tips to help future-proof your development and keep your toolbox fresh. 🧰 Whether you’re looking to optimize your current projects or prepare for your next career move, this guide will help you strengthen your skill set and stay ahead of the pack. 💪

1. Become a pro at AI, including the new models just released last month 🤖

OpenAI recently released OpenAI o1, a new series of AI models equipped with advanced reasoning capabilities to solve hard problems. Logic is your superpower as a developer 🧠, but we found that this new model, o1-preview, excels at finding innovative solutions to some problems. Rusty on your college math? o1-preview’s got your back there, too, displaying effortless calculation abilities. Here at GitHub, we experimented with how o1-preview could enhance GitHub Copilot, and we can’t wait to see what you’ll build with it.

You can try the new o1 models in two ways: first, through GitHub Models, where you can access o1-preview and o1-mini directly in a built-in playground. This allows you to experiment with different prompts and configurations for free, right within GitHub. When you’re satisfied, you can integrate your findings into your development environment. Second, you can use GitHub Copilot Chat in VS Code. Here, you can easily switch between GPT-4o and the new o1 models, even utilizing immersive mode for a deeper experience. Both these options, hosted on Azure, make it simple to explore how these advanced AI models can enhance your coding workflow and tackle complex challenges.  

👉 Sign up here for early access now. 

2. Become a wiz at building a CI/CD pipeline 💻

When you’re developing software at scale, speed is a must. But you don’t want to sacrifice security and code quality at the expense of shipping code faster. That’s where automating your developer workflow comes in handy. With Continuous Integration (CI) 🔄 and Continuous Delivery (CD) 🚚 tools, automation is no longer siloed in the domain of DevOps experts. Let’s start with the basics: a CI pipeline runs when code changes, ensuring those changes integrate smoothly with the rest of the code. It also compiles your code, runs tests, and checks for functionality. A CD pipeline goes one step further and deploys the built code into production. 

Follow these four steps to get started with GitHub Actions:

• Create or select a repository. Start by selecting an existing project repository or creating a new one in GitHub. This is where your CI/CD pipeline will operate.

• Configure GitHub Actions. Open the GitHub Actions tab in your repository and select a pre-built template or create your own workflow file. This workflow will define the steps for running CI/CD, such as testing and building your code.

• Push code changes. Once the workflow is set, push code changes to trigger the CI pipeline. This will ensure that the changes integrate smoothly with existing code, run tests, and check for any issues.

• Deploy to production. With CD, the pipeline takes it a step further by deploying the successfully built and tested code into production, automating the release process.

You’re now on your way to automating your workflow and building software with speed and efficacy. 💪🏽

3. Boost your metrics know-how by tracking the health of your repositories 📈

Especially in open source communities, it’s important that your ecosystem of repositories is a safe space for contributors, reliable, and well-maintained. But with sometimes hundreds of repositories as part of a project, it can be difficult to keep an eye on what’s working and identify areas for improvement. That’s what the World Health Organization (WHO) faced as it worked to strengthen its inner source software development processes. GitHub engineers recently partnered with them through our skills-based volunteering program to build an open source metrics dashboard. 

Looking to build your own metrics tracker? Here are the basic steps: 

• Create a repository: Set up a repository for your project to store your code and configurations.

• Configure GitHub Actions: Use GitHub Actions to automate fetching data from GitHub’s API, specifically using the GraphQL API to collect metrics.

• Aggregate data: Process the fetched data and store it in a JSON file for easy access and manipulation.

• Frontend display: Use a Next.js/React frontend to render the data, ensuring it's preloaded at build time for fast load speeds.

Plus, check out the three best practices to make your project a success. ✅

4. Showcase your expertise with GitHub Certifications 🎓

So, you’ve played around with AI using GitHub Copilot, built your CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions, and contributed to a healthy open source project with pull requests and issues. You deserve to show off your hard work by earning a GitHub Certification. 🙌 

Take one of five different certification exams to showcase your expertise in GitHub technologies and workflows. Once you pass, you’ll receive a digital Credly badge and certificate, as well as badges you can display across your social media profiles, your website, and your email signature. If test taking isn’t your jam, we’ve got a guide and multiple self-paced learning modules to get you good and ready.

With more than 100 million developers, four million organizations, and 90% of Fortune 100 companies on GitHub, the platform is an industry standard that you can’t go wrong with learning.

👉🏾 Just by reading this newsletter (or this past edition!), you’re already well on your way, so why not take the next step today? 🥇

5. Attend industry events like GitHub Universe 🚀

Where can you connect with developers, enterprise leaders, and security professionals from around the globe, all together in one place? Why, that would be at GitHub Universe, happening October 29-30 in San Francisco at the Fort Mason Center. (Virtual attendance is free!)

Remember 10 paragraphs ago when we said lifelong learning was so important? Here’s your chance to give it a shot: GitHub Universe will feature five stages hosting more than 150 speakers and 100 sessions on the latest products and best practices in AI, security, and DevEx (developer experience). 🗣️

Not to mention, IRL attendees can scope out the latest GitHub swag, eat plenty of tasty grub, and have an all-around good time. Plus, (callback to “Showcase your expertise!”) you can even register to take a GitHub Certifications test in person. 🤯 (Explore our past newsletter for even more info!)

So what are you waiting for? Take a look at the full catalog of sessions now available and snag your ticket today! 🌈

It can feel overwhelming to survey the constantly changing technology landscape and feel like you have a lot to catch up on. We hope these tips have narrowed it down for you and inspired you to try something new! Learning doesn’t have to be boring, and you also don’t have to do it alone. So flex those brain muscles, make a new friend, and let’s see the skills you pick up along the way. 🧠👫✨

More GitHub goodness: 

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✨ This newsletter was written by Laura Lindeman and produced by Gwen Davis. ✨