I could see this being an immensely useful tool in certain contexts. I know that having something like this, as opposed to submitting a print-out of my program results during my introductory programming course (as well as just being forced to become comfortable with what a command line is for pushing commits and understanding version control) would have a big step forward at the time. Obviously, it makes business sense for GitHub as well in terms of gaining users, but I think there's a chance this is one of those times when I see a serious upside for users could also be helpful to them in the long term.