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CISC 3130 Data Structures: Version Control (Git)

Professor Chuang Spring 2020 OER

Introduction

The class GitHub Organization page is where you can find assignments and code examples covered in class https://github.com/cisc3130-s20

Version control systems are used in managing revision control of project artifacts, and maintaining a history of changes to each artifact. Artifacts can include documents, source code, and much more.

Motivations for Source Version Control

 

  • Keeping track of code
  • Storing versions of code changes
  • Restoring previous versions
  • Reviewing work history
  • Collaborating in a group
  • Backup

There are two main approaches to version control management systems. That is, they can either be centralized, or decentralized repositories. This page covers Git is a decentralized system. 

Suggested reading:

Read Chapters 1-2 of the git book: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

Creating a new repository on GitHub https://help.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archiving-repositories/creating-a-new-repository

 

 

Git vs GitHub

Git — The version control tool that GitHub is built on top of. You do not need GitHub to use Git. You can install git to your machine to use locally. 

GitHub is a hosting service using git the open source revision control system. Github’s service allows you to share your code with the world, and also has several other collaboration features.

 Disclaimer: We are using GitHub in this class because of their helpful service feature that helps with managing the process with collecting assignments.

Git Workflow

Workspace - this is where you have files you’re editing in a folder
Stage - this is where you put files or selected lines into an area to be given a commit message
Commit Log - a history of committed changes. 

 

Git Commands

Common basic workflow steps: 
git add puts changes to the stage
git commit logs the staged code
git push origin master uploads the local master branch to server

Other common commands
git pull downloads latest version from server

   (git fetch checks for changes but doesn’t download it)
git clone <git address> copies a server version to locally
git remote -v shows the server address

Creative Commons License NC SA 4.0 icon This OER resource is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It was made for the Spring 2020 semester by Professor Katherine Chuang on Data Structures at Brooklyn College, Department of Computer and Information Science.