git, GitHub, and version control
The fine art of keeping track of what's going on with your code
Oct 22, 2015
What are the benefits of version control?
The first benefit of version control is that it makes collaborating on projects easier; instead of having an entire team of people each trying to coordinate when they can work on a file without conflicting with anyone else, everyone can make their changes concurrently and have them merged together later.
Another benefit of version control is that it keeps track of what has changed in the project and when. Every time changes are committed to the project, and every time the project is merged, the changes are described, and a backup copy of the project, prior to the changes is stored. This also provides for the ability to restore the project to an earlier version, should the changes prove suboptimal.
How does git help you keep track of changes?
git helps keep track of changes through the commit process. A commit basically acts as a snapshot of the project at a moment in time. Furthermore, every time you commit something to the project, there should be a message indicating what the change was, and perhaps even why it was made.
Why use GitHub to store your code?
Use GitHub to store code for many of the same reasons that you use remote internet services to store other things: ease of access - you can get to it from any computer with an internet connection. It also makes collaboration easier, as anyone else with an internet connection can also get to it, meaning you don't need to have some expensive shared file server that you and all your collaborators have access to.
On a somewhat tangential note, I was interested in learning exactly what git does to track commits, etc, and I found the following basic explanation: GeekGumbo on git. Interesting, no?