Introduction to version control

Introduction to Git

George Boorman

Curriculum Manager, DataCamp

What is version control?

• Processes and systems to manage changes to files, programs, and directories

What should be version controlled?

• Version control is useful for anything that:
  • changes over time, or
  • needs to be shared

What can version control do?

• Track files in different states
• Combine different versions of files
• Identify a particular version
• Revert changes

Why is version control important?

¹ Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@mvdheuvel

Why is version control important?

Introducing Git

• Popular version control system for software development and data projects
• Open source
• Scalable

Benefits of Git

• Git stores everything, so nothing is lost
• We can compare files at different times
• See what changes were made, by who, and when
• Revert to previous versions of files!

¹ Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@wilsonjim

Using Git

• Git commands are run on the shell, also known as the terminal
• The shell:
  • is a program for executing commands
  • can be used to easily preview or inspect files and directories

 

• Directory = folder

 

 

Useful terminal commands

pwd

/home/repl/Documents

ls

archive    finance.csv    finance_data_clean.csv    finance_data_modified.csv

Changing directory

cd archive

pwd

/home/repl/Documents/archive

Checking Git version

git --version

git version 2.46.0

Let's practice!

Introduction to Git