You can now use GitHub from an Android device, enabling you to work with code issues from almost anywhere.

GitHub is fast becoming an indispensable tool for many programmers. It is not only a source of software you can use, but a place where you can manage and share your own code. It is fast becoming the Facebook or Google+ of programmers. Of course if you want a private work area then you have to pay for it - this is a for-profit business. It may be based on Linus Torvald's wonderful version control system GIT, which is open source, but GitHub is far from open anything. To bring home the point the latest news is that it has just secured $100 million in external funding based on a revenue growth of 300% per annum.

This said, GitHub is easy to use and, being so successful, it certainly feels like a long term home for many projects.

The first release of a free Android app to connect you to the service will also make it even more attractive an option. Not only can you download it for free from Google Play, but you can have the source code. It is issued under an Apache 2 licence and is free for you to modify.

The first release includes a dashboard that provides access to created, watched and assigned issues, complete with filters. It also supports gists, which are like shared notes that you can use to put code chunks or text into - but they are still git repositories.

That's about all you can do and you will still need to use a browser for anything more sophistiacated. It is only version 1, however, and things might get better in later versions.