Getting Started with GitHub

GitHub Links.md

Installing Git

• GitHub Dekstop
• GitHub Eclipse
• Git Command Line tools

Git resources

• Git Cheat Sheet
• The GitHub Flow
• GitHub Training
• GitHub Training & Guides on YouTube
• Set up Git
• git-scm.com

GitHub Student Developer Pack

• education.github.com/pack
  • Five private repos free while you are a student
  • Unreal Engine free while you are a student

GitHub Talk.md

How cool is GitHub?

• Sharing code, no email
• Work with better programmers
• Get noticed

Gist

• Use GitHub without using GitHub

What is source control?

Alice and Bob are working together on a project.
They each have a copy of the project on their computers.

• Alice makes a couple changes to her copy
• Bob makes a change to his copy

How will these changes come together?

Git allows different people to work on a project separately and then, some time later, bring all of the changes together.

Why use source control?

• Made a bad change and need to revert back to a known good state
• Want to see diff between versions
• Want to see how long a bug has existed
• Experiment without breaking working code

Tracking changes is what Git does

Git Structure

.git folder

• Stores changes
  • hashes, diffs, text
• Delete it, no more git
• Universal Git API

Distributed

Start on local machine, push to GitHub when you need to collaborate

Repository

• Think of it like a project
• Limited in scope

Git Commits

Snapshot

Can look at differences

• Contain:
  • Commit ref
    • 40 characters
    • UUID
  • Author name / email
  • Commiter name / email
  • Date & time
  • Message
• Each commit should tell a coherent story
• Commit messages are important
• Each commit should have a message explaining
• One file at a time, or multiple related files at once

![Merge branch 'asdfasjkfdlas/alkdjf' into sdkjfls-final] (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/git_commit.png)

History

• Can roll back to a specific point in time later
• Can see when a change was introduced

Branches

• Start work on new branch
• MASTER should be production

Installing Git

Many options

• Eclipse plugin
• GitHub for Desktop
  • Compromise between ease of web interface and power of command line

Features of GitHub

• Hosted Repositories
  • Can be public or private
  • Students can have up to five free private repos
  • Can have one contributor, or many contributors
  • Built in Issue Tracker
    • Issues =/= Bad
    • @mentions
    • Anyone can comment on an issue
    • Subscribe button
    • Notifications
    • Closed issues are saved in history forever
    • Pull Request is a special kind of issue
• Can edit files (and commit changes) directly in the web interface

GitHub Collaboration

• Fork
  • Create your own copy
  • Do whatever you like
  • Changeset container
  • Forks are good!
• Pull Request
  • Special kind of issue with changes attached
  • After you have made useful changes
  • Offer your changes back to the origin

![There are probably children out there holding down spacebar to stay warm in the winter! YOUR UPDATE MURDERS CHILDREN.] (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/workflow.png)

GitHub Pages

• Every Repo has it's own website
• gh-pages branch
• Users can have their own static website hosted by GitHub
  • <username>.github.com

Getting Started with GitHub

• Create an account
• Fill out profile
• Test Repo
  • Initialize with Readme
  • Edit Readme
  • Look ma, no downloads!

Bringing it all together

• Find a repository you'd like to contribute to
• Read project's Contributing.txt to learn how to be a good citizen
• Fork project repo to create your own copy
• Create a new branch in your fork that will hold the changes for this feature
• Commit your changes to this branch to add a feature or fix a bug
• Submit a Pull Request to announce your changes, offering them back to the origin
  • In the message of the Pull Request, be sure to explain exactly what your changes do
  • This will usually spark a conversation around the Pull Request
  • You may be asked to add something to your pull request
  • Just push more commits to your branch
  • Once pull request has been accepted/rejected, you may delete your branch
  • Probably a good idea not to delete your Fork, however
• ...profit?

Gist Revisited

• Each Gist is actually a Git repo
• Keeps a full revision history
• Can be cloned & forked
• Can be "upgraded" to a GitHub repository later

Git Bits

.gitignore

• Ignore generated files
  • .exe
  • .class
  • .o
  • Config files
• Ignore large files that can be found elsewhere
  • ENABL

HEAD, master, detached head

Configure command line client

git diff

Image attribution

• XKCD