ALL THE INFORMATION ABOUT

What is GITHub and what is it for?

Github is a free online repository that allows you to manage projects and control code versions. It is widely used by developers to store their work, giving millions of people around the world the opportunity to cooperate on it.

One could speak of Github as the social network designed for developers, being this repository one of the most used worldwide.

We can follow and interact with people interested in a particular type of project, making our own known or cooperating in the project of third parties.

What is version control?

A version control allows developers to manage changes to a software as the project evolves.

If a developer wanted to work on a project, it would be risky to make changes to the original code. Version control makes it possible to duplicate a part of a project in isolation and work on it without changing the original repository.

Once it has been verified that the change has been made successfully, the developer can merge his branch with the project by creating a new version of the project

This new version records the changes made to the previous version so that they can be tested by other developers.

What is Git?

Git is an open source distributed version control system developed by Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.

Distributed version control allows developers to download software, make changes and upload the version they have modified. All uploaded modifications are saved in separate versions, not overwriting the original file.

The difference between version control and Git is that in Git each developer will have on the computer a copy of the original source code and the available versions of the project, allowing branching and merging.

In this way all developers interested in the project will be able to see the modifications made and contribute to improve the software code.

When we refer to the hub part we talk about what makes this Git special, lthe community and interaction with other users.

How Github works

To understand how Github works and why it is used by thousands of people around the world we will have to see what parts make it up.

Repository

A repository is the location or path where all the information of a project such as images, code, folders, documents, etc. is stored.

Each project would have its own unique repository, so the path will be unique to the project.

Branch (branches)

In the case that we want to work on a specific part of our project in isolation without affecting the main repository, we will have to do it through Branch.

The Branch will create an exact copy of our project to test without fear of making mistakes and affecting all the work done.

Pull Request (Merge)

Every time you upload a new change in a branch of the project, you can notify the other collaborators so that they can validate or not your pull request, or if they find possible improvements they can comment on them.

Tag

Tags allow you to control the status of a repository by giving information to other users about which version the project is currently in.

This action is known as “Tagging” and is quite important when managing the life of a project.

Fork

A widely used option in Github is the Fork option. With this option you can create a new project based on one already created, allowing you to make modifications and saving it in your own repository and not in the original repository.

This option facilitates the growth of projects allowing developers to continue improving a software on their own and in the case of an improvement in the main repository you can also implement it to your cloned project.

This option is known on Github as forking.

AT THE BEST TIME

When to use Github

Github is perfect for managing developments, allowing projects to be shared with a large community of developers who will be happy to cooperate and improve the software, contributing improvements or comments that will add value to the final development.

Having a version manager like Git allows you to see all the changes in the life of the project from the beginning.

If you want to learn more about Github just visit their website github.com/about or if you want to start working with it we leave you this other Github guide.