Git Moving: A Beginner’s Guide to Version Control

This workshop introduces the beauty of version control. We will introduce git, GitHub and GitHub Desktop, provide key vocabulary associated with the git environment, and a visual description of how version control works in local (on your machine) and remote environments (on GitHub). We will also discuss use cases beyond software maintenance and development. The hands-on portion of the workshop will cover setting up a local and remote repository, saving changes to the local repository and updating a remote repository.

Note: You will need to install git in advance.  To install on a windows computer, see these instructions: https://git-scm.com/install/windows. To install on a Mac, use these instructions: https://git-scm.com/install/mac. Note, the easiest option will be to follow “Xcode Command Line Tools” instructions. Don’t hesitate to use go.ncsu.edu/getdatahelp if you need help installing this tool before the workshop. We will not install the software during the workshop!

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Describe the difference between git, GitHub and GitHub Desktop
• Differentiate between and describe general version control workflows
• Understand terms like local repository, remote repository, commit, stage, push, pull as they relate to version control
• Be able to create a local repository, stage and commit changes and push them to a remote repository
• Set up a remote repository and associate it with your local repository