Open Resources for Learning and Using Git & Github

A list of openly available and free resources for learning and using git & Github.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Tutorials
• Tips & Tricks
• Exercises
• Other Lists

Overview

Using version control is an important skill for any software-driven work. One of the most common approaches for version control is to use git & Github. Here, we collect open tutorials and resources for learning git & Github.

As a very brief overview / cheat-sheet:

• version control: is a system for managing files, keeping track of changes and different versions
• git: is an open-source tool for doing version control
• github: is a place (basically, a database), that uses git. Github is a privately owned service

Tutorials

The following are resources that provide tutorials for learning git and/or Github:

• This presentation by Alice Bartlett gives a clear conceptual overview and introduces key terminology for git
• This simple guide by Roger Dudler provides a brief and simple overview of git
• This primer by Bradley Voytek gives a general description of what git is and how it works
• The git website has full documentation, including a book on git
• Github themselves have lots of documentation, including a git handbook that introduces the main concepts for version control, and a hello world page, to get started using Github
• The try git page includes a collection of resources for learning and using git & Github
• Atlassian have a series of tutorials for learning how to use git
• This journal article provides a quick introduction to using git & Github for scientists
• Software Carpentry have a introductory tutorial for getting started with git
• This tutorial video steps through a hands-on tutorial for using Github for researchers
• The PSModels git tutorial is a comprehensive online textbook introducing git & Github

Tips and Tricks

Useful tips, tricks, and cheat-sheets for git include:

• Git cheat sheet, from Github
• Git Tips, from Github
• Git cheat sheet, from Olivia Guest
• Git Flight Rules, or how to do specific tasks, and how to fix things
• A list of special files available and used on Github

Exercises

Dedicated exercises for learning and practicing git:

• Learn git branching is an online, interactive tutorial with demonstrations and exercises
• A set of exercises for deliberate git pratice
• Git Gud, a command line game to help learn and practice Git

Other Lists

There are other collections of git & github related links, including:

• the awesome github collection
• the git is hard collection