What is git?

Git is a version control system designed to help people who write code (developers) work in real-time on a shared set of scripts and other software projects. It was originally developed by Linus Torvalds as a tool for Linux developers. One can imagine how many moving pieces there would be and how many hands would be on deck to issue a major release of a Linux distribution! It’s similar to “Track Changes” in Microsoft Word but far, far more powerful. Imagine if Track Changes let you:

• maintain different versions of your document without having to have a bunch of files floating around with titles such as ManuscriptV1.docx and ManuscriptV2.docx;
• make changes with collaborators and revert your document to a previous time point;
• not have to worry about editing the “right” version of a document that you share with collaborators.
  • On this last point, who among us has not shared the unique agony of working on a complex, large document with multiple collaborators, submitted extensive edits, and then realized that you wrote your comments on the the wrong file (e.g. BigTimeCodeProjectv14.R not BigTimeCodeProjectv15.R).

What is GitHub?

GitHub is one of several mainstream hosting services. Practically, what that means is that GitHub will mirror all of the files in a repository (more or less a folder) online. In that sense, it is pretty similar to DropBox or GoogleDrive.

Why use git + GitHub?

(Note that this would apply equally to other hosting services such as Bitbucket and GitLab).

• More streamlined versioning of your code, documents, and even data!
• Easier collaboration
• Hosting means that if your machine crashes (or if you get caught in a git snarl), you can always recover a current or previous version of your document.
• Moreover, hosting means that your work is more easily accessible and discoverable to the community.

How?

Exercises coming soon

• Broken toy code (amniote functions?)
• Add tabs to the website as an exercise?