Intro to git & github

What is git?

• Git is a version control system
• it was designed to help a group of developers work collaboratively on software projects.
• git manages the evolution of a set of files - a repository - in a highly structured way.

This is based on happy git with R, written by Jenny Bryan, the STAT 545 TAs, and Jim Hester.

What is github?

• github is an online location where your git repositories can live (they could also just live on your computer, but it’s better to also have them in the cloud)

• github also provides some nice features that make sharing, communicating, collaborating, … much easier

Should you use git?

Maybe.

If you’re only working alone and you’re not planning to one day get a job in a software or data science role, git is probably overkill.

I personally use git only on projects where I work with other people on code, which is not a lot. So I am myself no git wizard.

What we’ll be doing today is only a short introduction to git and github! There’s a lot more to learn :)

Getting started

Getting git to work on your computer for the first time is tricky, and depends on your precise setup (Operating System, what developer tools you’ve got installed…).

It’s much easier if we try to work on things individually, and then I can help troubleshoot.

We’re following this amazing tutorial by Jenny Bryan and colleagues: https://happygitwithr.com/

You can start at step 4: Register a GitHub account

We will be working until step 14.