git-background.qmd

---
title: "Git Background"
---

:::{.callout-tip icon="false" collapse="false"}
### {{< fa brain >}} Learning Objectives

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

- <u>Define</u> "version control"
- <u>Describe</u> the difference between Git and GitHub

:::

## Version Control Background

Version control systems (including Git) are built to preserve the iterative versions that we create on the way to a final product. For instance, when writing a scientific manuscript we might have several discrete stages (e.g., separate drafts after successive rounds of feedback from collaborators) as well as the sort of small-scale changes we don't necessarily preserve in separate files (e.g., workshopping a particular sentence for rhetorical flow).

**Version control systems provide a framework for preserving these changes without cluttering your computer with all of the files that precede the final version.**

<p align="center">
<img src="images/comics/phd_comics_final.png" alt="Comic of a graduate student naming a file 'final.doc' then getting progressively more frustrated and making worse file names as that file received iterative comments from an advisor" width="60%"/>
</p>

## Git-Specific Background

Git can be enabled on a specific folder/directory on your file system to version files within that directory (including sub-directories). In Git (and other version control systems) terms, this "tracked folder" is called a **repository** (which formally is a specific data structure storing versioning information).

Although there many ways to start a new repository, [GitHub](https://github.com/) (or any other cloud solutions, such as [GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/)) provide among the most convenient way of starting a repository.

Let's distinguish between Git and GitHub:

- **Git**: version control software used to track files in a folder (a repository)
    - Git creates the versioned history of a repository
- **GitHub**: website that allows users to store their Git repositories and share them with others (i.e. a graphical user interface or "GUI")
	
**GitHub is a company that hosts Git repositories online** and provides several collaboration features. GitHub fosters a great user community and has built a nice web interface to Git, also adding great visualization/rendering capacities of your data.

- **GitHub.com**: [github.com](https://github.com/)
- **A user account**: [github.com/angelchen7](https://github.com/angelchen7)
- **An organization account**: [github.com/lter](https://github.com/lter)