Created: Sep 16, 2020 3:03 PM
Version control is basically a way that we as programmers track our code changes. We save an initial version of our code into git and then when we update code we can save it into git again and again and throughout time as our code continues to change we can look back at all the changes we have made over time.
This helps us see and understand what we did when as well as track down bugs or go back to a previous version of the code if we need to.
Git is what we call a version control system that is free and open-source and it's the most widely used version control system in development today. Most programmers interact with git on a daily basis.
Having a Git repository makes it easy for you to keep track of collaborative and personnel projects - all files necessary for certain analyses can be held together and people can add in their code, graphs, etc. as the projects develop. Each file that is tracked with git has a history, making it easy to explore the changes that occurred to it at different time points. On Github can review other people’s code, add comments to certain lines or the overall document, and suggest changes. For collaborative projects, Github allows you to assign tasks to different users, making it clear who is responsible for which part of the analysis. You can also ask certain users to review your code. For personal projects, version control allows you to keep track of your work and easily navigate among the many versions of the files you create, whilst also maintaining an online backup.
You can think of a repository (or repo) as a “master folder”, everything associated with a specific project should be kept in the repo for that project. Repos can have folders within them, or just be separate files.
You will have a local copy (on your computer) and an online copy (on Github) of all the files in the repository.
Getting started with GitHub Desktop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGOj5yH7evk&t=1509s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVsySz-h9r4