Summary and Schedule

Prerequisite

Prerequisites

A working local installation of Git
A local copy of the recipe repository
Complete the Setup before starting

About the RSE team

Your instructors are part of Imperial’s central Research Software Engineering (RSE) team, whose role is to improve the quality, impact and sustainability of research software. While most of our work is as hired coders and consultants on research projects, we also offer a number of free services, including training courses such as this one and one-to-one code surgeries, where you can get advice and support with software development.

You can find more information about our work and the services we offer on our website.

Setup Instructions

Download files required for the lesson

00h 00m

1. Course overview

What will this course cover?
In what lesson-style is this course delivered?

00h 05m

2. Why use a Version Control System?

What is version control software?
Why should I use it?

00h 15m

3. Committing and History

How do I start a project using Git?
How do I record changes made in a project?
How do I view the history of a project?
How can I correct mistakes I make with Git?

01h 05m

4. Break

01h 15m

5. Sharing your code

How can I share my code with others?
What should I take into account when sharing my code?

01h 35m

6. Remote repositories

Is my local repository the same as the remote one?
How can I send my local changes to the remote one?
How can I get the changes others have made?

02h 10m

7. Break

02h 20m

8. Using GitHub Issues

How can I use GitHub issues to manage a TODO list for my project?

02h 40m

9. Using GUIs and IDEs

What other ways can I interact with Git other than at the command line?
What tools are available for using Git?
When is it better to use each method of interacting with Git?

03h 05m

Finish

The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on the topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.

Completing this course requires you to have access to a computer with Git installed. This course is currently being delivered remotely so please make sure you have access to a suitable computer. All attendees should download the zip file and, if not already available, install Git.

Downloading the Zip File

The files we will be working with during the course are available in a zip archive. Please download it and save it in your home directory, but do not extract it yet.

Install Git

Please follow the relevant instructions depending on your operating system.

Download the Git for Windows installer.

Run the installer and follow the steps below:

Click on “Next” four times (two times if you’ve previously installed Git). You don’t need to change anything in the Information, location, components, and start menu screens.
From the dropdown menu select “Use the nano editor by default” and click on “Next”.
Select “Override the default branch name for new repositories” and use inclusive terms like “main” (Refer: The new Git default branch name).
Ensure that “Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software” is selected and click on “Next”. (If you don’t do this Git Bash will not work properly, requiring you to remove the Git Bash installation, re-run the installer and to select the “Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software” option.)
Ensure that “Use bundled OpenSSH” is selected and click on “Next”.
Ensure that “Use the native Windows Secure Channel library” is selected and click on “Next”.
Ensure that “Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style line endings” is selected and click on “Next”.
Ensure that “Use Windows’ default console window” is selected and click on “Next”.
Ensure that “Fast-forward or merge” is selected and click on “Next”.
Ensure that “Git Credential Manager” is selected and click on “Next”.
Ensure that “Enable file system caching” is selected and click on “Next”.
Ensure to select “Enable experimental built-in file system monitor” and click on “Install”.
Click on “Finish”.

If your “HOME” environment variable is not set (or you don’t know what this is):

Open command prompt (Open Start Menu then type cmd and press [Enter])
Type the following line into the command prompt window exactly as shown: setx HOME "%USERPROFILE%"
Press [Enter], you should see SUCCESS: Specified value was saved
Quit command prompt by typing exit then pressing [Enter]

This will provide you with both Git and Bash via the program Git Bash. You should be able to launch Git Bash from the Start Menu. Within the window that launches enter the command git --version and press enter. You should see output similar to that below:

BASH

git version 2.40.0.windows-1

Apple provide a suite of UNIX-style command line tools that includes git. Install them by opening the “Terminal” app and running:

BASH

$ xcode-select --install
xcode-select: note: install requested for command line developer tools

This will open a dialog that asks for your confirmation to install the tools. If it does not open a dialog, it may be because it is already installed (the error message will be clear).

To check the installation was successful open the “Terminal” app. In the window that launches enter the command git --version and press enter. You should see output similar to that below:

BASH

git version 2.37.1 (Apple Git-137.1)

If the above does not work, you may have and older version of macOS. Try the following: install Git for Mac by downloading and running the most recent “mavericks” installer from this list. Because this installer is not signed by the developer, you may have to right click (control click) on the .pkg file, click Open, and click Open on the pop up window. After installing Git, there will not be anything in your /Applications folder, as Git is a command line program. For older versions of OS X (10.5-10.8) use the most recent available installer labelled “snow-leopard”.

If Git is not already available on your machine you can try to install it via your distribution’s package manager. For Debian/Ubuntu run sudo apt-get install git and for Fedora run sudo dnf install git.

To check the installation was successful open a new terminal. In the window that launches enter the command git --version and press enter. You should see output similar to the below:

BASH

git version 2.40.0

Optional additional setup

GitHub

This course will make use of GitHub, an online repository hosting site. If you do not already have a GitHub account, you may wish to create one ahead of time, although this will be covered during the course.

Communicating with GitHub securely requires a means of authentication. We will walk through creating a personal access token (PAT) during the course, but you may wish to look at this ahead of time. Alternatively, if you already have an SSH key, you may wish to add this to your GitHub account.

GitKraken

This course will demonstrate the use of GitKraken, a desktop application for using git. There are a number of other similar applications, such as GitHub Desktop, however, we will use GitKraken as it is cross-platform and therefore accessible for all course attendees. If you already have a preferred desktop git application, feel free to continue using that, but you may wish to compare the functionality with your current choice.