Prep and Installation

To join the wonderful world of version control, please create a GitHub account and install Git on your system.

1. Get a GitHub Account

GitHub is a Git repository hosting service, a place to store and sync your work in the cloud. Take a minute to create a free account. They provide some great introductory tutorials, for additional reference.

Text Editor

When working with code you should have a good text editor. Windows notepad does not handle UTF-8 encoding or UNIX line endings that are standard for most cross platform applications. For basic editing, Windows Notepad++, Mac TextEdit, or Linux Gedit are sufficient. However, a more complete code editor will be helpful for working on projects and can often integrate with Git to make your life easier. I highly recommend Visual Studio Code.

2. Install Git

Git version control system is a piece of software you install on your computer. Installing it is pretty easy:

• Windows: install Git for Windows using the default options, except:
  • when setup asks you to choose the default editor used by Git, select the Visual Studio Code option (or your preferred text editor).
  • when asked about “checkout style,” select “checkout as-is, commit unix style” for cross platform compatibility This will give you Git, Git Bash, and Git GUI. Git Bash is a great terminal that lets you use UNIX style commands and utilities on Windows.
• Mac: check if Git is already installed by opening terminal and typing git --version. If you do not have it, download the official Mac installer.
• Linux: install from your distribution’s software center or package manager (for Ubuntu sudo apt install git).

Git Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)

This tutorial introduces the basic Git workflow using the command line and GitHub web interface. However, you may prefer a GUI application for your future day-to-day work with Git. There are a variety of GUI apps available for managing and visualizing Git repositories.

On Windows and Mac machines, I recommend installing GitHub Desktop using the default options. On Linux gitg and GitKraken are good options.