Version Control with Git

What is Version Control?

Version control is a name used for software which can help you record changes you make to the files in a directory on your computer.

It can be useful to keep track of when you made changes to your own work and when, and without getting into this situation:

“Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham

Why Should I Use It?

Version control software and tools such as Git and SVN are often associated with software development and did originate from that community. But version control isn’t just for code. It’s for anything you want to track.

For example, using Git to manage a writing project enables you to view multiple drafts, see differences between those drafts, roll back changes and if you want to you can then share your work with others on GitHub.

So at its most basic level, version control software helps us register and track sets of changes made to files on our computer.

Benefits of using version control

Collaboration - Version control allows us to define formalized ways we can work together and share writing and/or code.
Versioning - Having a robust and rigorous log of changes to a file, without renaming files
Rolling Back - Version control allows us to quickly undo a set of changes.
Understanding - Version control can help you understand or share how a project came to be, who wrote or contributed particular parts, and who you might ask to help understand it better.
Backup - While not meant to be a backup solution, using version control systems mean that your code or writing can be stored on multiple other computers.

What are Git and GitHub?

We often hear the terms Git and GitHub used interchangeably but they are slightly different things.

Git is a widely used version control system. It is a free, open source tool that can be downloaded to your local machine and used for logging changes made to a group of files (referred to as a “Git repository” or “repo” for short) over time.

Git was originally developed to help software developers work collaboratively, but it can be and is used for managing revisions to any file type, including text documents and spreadsheets. (Note: certain file types like MS Word and PDF contain special formatting which Git unfortunately cannot version control, though both can be stored in Git repositories.)
Git saves (or in Git parlance, commits) changes as snapshots, and manages these for you in the background. Earlier versions of each file still remain in their original form: they are not overwritten, should we ever wish to “roll back” to them.
We can access a log of all the changes that have been made at any time we need to.

GitHub, on the other hand, is a website for hosting and sharing Git repositories. It offers a web interface and functionality for working with such repositories.

As with Git, a lot of the content on GitHub is software-related, though increasingly it is being used for other projects such as open access journals (e.g. Journal of Open Source Software), blogs, and academic text books.
GitHub can be used to publish content online. Any GitHub repository can have its own project website, blog and wiki using GitHub Pages.
GitHub hosts many open-licensed projects. By forking one of these, a GitHub user can quickly create their own version of an existing project. A forked project could be the basis for a new project, or it could be used to test new features and later be merged back into the original.
There are other Git hosting services that offer many similar features to GitHub such as GitLab and Bitbucket.

So Git and GitHub are related, but different. You can choose to

use Git by itself to track changes and resolve conflicts or
use GitHub to host a project that users can collaborate on or to publish it

Git will preserve the original metadata as well as all edits. GitHub will facilitate discussion about what changes should be made, who should make them, and why.

💡 Key Points:

✅ Version control helps track changes to files and projects, like an unlimited ‘undo’

✅ It can be useful for both individuals and groups of people

✅ Git and Github are not the same