Version Control Part 2

We’ll move onto more advanced version control techniques which will aid you beyond this class, but you’ll get practice within this class to hone your skills. If you run into any difficulties following any of these steps, please post in our class channel (#phys709-fall2024) on Slack.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we’ll make use of the excellent resources provided by Software Carpentry. Specifically your task is to follow the Software Carpentry tutorial Version Control with Git. I honestly believe this is more fun than it is onerous “homework”. Have fun with it, explore, collaborate, learn!

If you’re not comfortable with the Unix Shell, I can recommend Software Carpentry’s The Unix Shell tutorial; recommended not required.

Of course, you already have a GitHub account so you should be able to dive straight into this tutorial. You’ll also quickly learn that you want to use a good text editor. My personal favorite at the moment is VS Code which has really nice integration with Git, but this is a very personal choice (of which there are many). I’m happy to show you my personal setup Windows+WSL+ohmyzsh+vscode upon request.

Recall how you all made test-repo in the earlier tutorial. Well, when you get to part 3. Creating a repository, you can repurpose your test-repo by renaming your repository to the suggested planets and then continue following the tutorial; that way I should maintain my access.

When you get to part 8. Collaborating, where it says get into pairs, find one or more classmates to collaborate with and follow the instructions for sharing and collaborating with each other’s repositories. I’ll be able to verify this (and aid with any conflicts) by observing commits within all the repositories.

If you want to go beyond, explore at your own pace Advanced git with an interactive webpage that helps one learn how to work with branches.