What is GitHub: Sharing knowledge is one of the prettiest things one can do and here is a guide you may look for. In this digital world, there are many technological things to know as education is a never-ending process.
You might have encountered many technological words, software names, and software company names. However, some people may not know everything about those technological terms and details.
In that way, you seem to be searching to get some knowledge on GitHub and more information about it. This article will be a relevant one where you can get your expected information followed by what is GitHub.
Table of Contents
What is GitHub?
GitHub is a well-known developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code using the Git software. Also, it provides the distributed control version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project.
This company has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2018 being headquartered in California. Commonly, GitHub is used to host open-source software development projects having over 100 million developers.
In short, GitHub is a cloud-based Git repository hosting service that has a user-friendly interface. So, probably, you will have an idea of what is GitHub, and continue reading this guide to know more.
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How Does GitHub Work?
First, the users of GitHub create their accounts, upload files, and create coding projects where the real work of GitHub starts when the users begin to collaborate. Even when anyone can code using this platform independently, teams of people build most development projects.
Though these teams are in one place sometimes they often work asynchronously. GitHub makes the process simpler in several ways while there are many challenges to creating collaborative projects with distributed teams.
Initially, all the codes and documentation were in one place which limits issues with access for anyone who wants to contribute to a project. Also, each repository contains instructions and other details to help with the goals and rules of outline projects.
The interesting thing is that coding is more creative and abstract than most non-technical people think. For instance, two persons are working on different pieces of code and these pieces of code should work together.
However, one piece of code can make the other code fail or a piece of code has an unexpected impact on how the other code works. Here, GitHub solves this issue by showing how both files will change the main branch because it catches these errors before pushing changes which makes the coding process more efficient.
Also, tracking changes and going back to previous versions of a project is made easier with GitHub.
What is Git?
Git is a tool or an open-source version control software used for managing and tracking file revisions. It allows developers and everyone to use version control that can be used with any file type.
However, it is most often used for tracking code files and is the most widely used version control system in software development. Also, it leverages this technology for its service being the reason for the name.
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Version Control
Version Control is the one that helps developers to track and manage changes to a software project’s code and it is essential as soon as a project grows. For example, WordPress is a big project it will not be safe or efficient to edit the source code directly with one specific part of the codebase.
So, Version Control helps developers work through branching and merging safely. A developer duplicates the part of the source code which is called a repository and he can make changes to the part of the code without affecting the rest of the project. Once the developer gets the part of the code working properly, then he can merge the code back into the main source code to make it official.
Repository
A GitHub Repository commonly called Repository is the one that is used to store a development project. It contains any type of files and folders like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Documents, Data, Images, etc. Also, it includes a license file and a README file about the project and can be used to store ideas or any resources you want to share.
Branch
The branch is the one used to work with different versions of a repository at the same time and it has a master branch (production branch) by default. New branches are for bug fixes and feature work separate from the master branch whereas any other branch is a copy of the master branch.
Commits
Changes are called Commits at GitHub and each Commit has a description explaining why a change was made.
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Pull Requests
Pull Requests here are like the heart of the GitHub collaborationPull Requests are the heart of GitHub collaboration. You can propose that your changes should be merged or pulled in with the master using these Pull Requests.
They show content differences, changes, additions, and subtractions in various colors like green and red. You can pull a request and start a discussion even before the code is finished when you have a Commit.
Other Common Terms in GitHub
- GitHub- A Web Interface for using Git.
- Organization (Org)- A grouping mechanism that allows teams to collaborate across many projects at once.
- Fork- A New repository that inherits from a parent upstream repo that is used to suggest changes being tested or considered. It is done along with a default branch that serves as a source of truth.
- Markdown ( MD)- It is a way to write content that converts plain text to formatted text.
- Merge- Once a pull request is approved that Commit will be pulled in or merged from one branch to another which is then deployed on the live site.
- Issues- It allows users to report issues or bugs and track the progress of assigning the fix for the issues.
- Federalist- It is a platform that securely develops a website from a GitHub repository in minutes. It will let the users preview proposed and published changes.
- Projects- It allows you to use GitHub for Project management and for tracking a set of issues either for a specific repo or an entire org.
- Wiki- It is a section of a repo made for hosting documentation which may be in the repo’s README file instead.
Conclusion
Hopefully, we have tried our best to answer you what is GitHub in this article. Also, you will have a knowledge of how GitHub works through this guide which will help you to use the application well. Knowing the terminologies used in GitHub is also important as you should be familiar with them once you start using GitHub.
Though it seems to understand the terminologies initially, later it will be easier to understand the ins and outs of GitHub. Thus you can spend a few minutes reading this article and make use of the GitHub application wiser.
