D-Lab Git Fundamentals Workshop

A starting point for discovering the wonderful world of Git and GitHub in the context of Research Workflows.

Getting ready for today's workshop

• Sign up for github, and and check for the verification email.
• Install git on your laptop: https://git-scm.com/downloads

Our materials for Today

We'll be walking through a standard tutorial together. We won't cover all the material, but enough to get you started with the fundamentals and use this as a way to work through your workflow and answer questions that you have:

Software Carpentry tutorial: https://swcarpentry.github.io/git-novice/

Git in the Cloud

To simulate a collaborative research workflow, we will also be using a remote cloud environment in addition to your laptop.

Cloud Shell Example

Any time you need quick access to a shell command line somewhere other than your laptop you can use (for free!) Google Cloud Shell.

Try launching Cloud Shell now in your browser by clicking this link:

https://console.cloud.google.com/home/dashboard?cloudshell=true

Then run these commands in the Cloud Shell window:

git clone https://github.com/dlab-berkeley/git-fundamentals/
cd git-fundamentals
./rstudio-on-gcp.sh

Other GUI tools for your laptop

Note: The tools below are other interesting and useful tools that you may wish to explore, however they are NOT REQUIRED for this workshop. The only install that is required is the the official Git installer.

• Command line tools:

  • For OS X, install the homebrew package manager
  • For Windows install the chocolatey package manager

• GUI tools

  • GitHub Desktop App
  • SourceTree
  • Many others are available, and you can search for even more!

• Integration for your text editor!

  • Atom
  • Vim fugitive
  • Emacs Magit
  • Sublime Text 2

• To choose a default editor to use with git:

Atom	$ git config --global core.editor "atom --wait"
nano	$ git config --global core.editor "nano -w"

Awesome resources

• Basic commands cheat sheet(s) (Note the links to other cheat sheets!)
• Gamified git
• GitHub sponsors this.
• Where does "help" go from GitHub? Here.
• Linux commands cheat sheet (also mostly works for OS X command line).
• git - the simple guide
• The visual git guide

What to do when you run into TROUBLE?!?!

• Read the Flight rules for Git, a guide for using Git and what to do when things go wrong.

Flight Rules are the hard-earned body of knowledge recorded in manuals that list, step-by-step, what to do if X occurs, and why. Essentially, they are extremely detailed, scenario-specific standard operating procedures.

Local Git expositors at UC Berkeley

• A problem-focused exploration of git features is available in @jkitzes' Data Science Lessons
• An IPython notebook (of course!) from @fperez.