Use GitHub as source code repository

When working of projects involving repeated modification of text files (such as source code or documentation texts), you may wish to distribute work, track changes, assign versions, keep a history that you can inspect and look back in.

Why use a Version Control System?

Task

Visit the GitHub website and create an account.

To get started with Git, follow at least any two of these tutorials:

• Code School - Try Git
• Learn X in Y minutes, Where X=git
• Git Immersion

Then, read this soft intro to Git.

If you want to consolidate your knowledge while playing a game, this is the address for you.

Having a GitHub account will allow you to:

• host freely your code, projects, and websites,
• showcase your projects (as in portfolio), allowing people to contact/hire you,
• contribute to many, many open-source projects,
• maintain a history of all changes that you or other people make to the code. (So you can blame them for it not working.)

See this video by FOX News covering the GitHub start-up.

You should use GitHub repositories for all your programming projects, and you should be familiar at least with the following git commands:

git init   - for creating a new repository
    clone  - for cloning an existing repository
    status - see what files are modified since the previous commit
    diff   - see the changes exactly
    add    - add the file into version control (track it)
    commit - commit changes into the repository
    log    - see the backlog of all commits
    push   - push the commits from your local repository to the origin
    pull   - pull changes (by others) into your local repository
    help   - see the program usage and help

You should also familiarize yourself with the GitHub interface, and you will be quizzed on these subjects.

Tip

After some experience with basic git, in a year or so, refer to this site to see if it has something interesting for you.