How does GitHub work?

[oats_0968]

I have heard of people using GitHub, and I have created an account. I don't really understand how to use GitHub. By that I mean I don't know how to code on GitHub and how to access and run other's codes

 

[tikker]

It's (mainly) a place to store your code, not run it, and you manage it through e.g. git. You store code in a "repository", multiple people can contribute to it if you want. When you change something you "commit" your changes and then "push" it to the repostitory. This way you track all the changes that happen to the code.

[SupaKomputa]

It's a public library of codes, you can write a code, upload it so anyone can use it, contribute or fork.

For end users you can use something like composer (for php) to download and compile the code to your existing app.

And it will automatically install all the prerequisite so you don't have to.

[Ominous]

First to understand what GitHub is, you first need to know what Git is.  Git is a version control system which tracks changes to your code.  It primarily operates on the command line but GUI interfaces (such as GitHub Desktop) exist to help you use it.  Git website

 

Git works by monitoring a folder which is known as a "repository".  It will track all current lines of code contained within that folder and compare any changes you have made to them.  When you have made a change, you can then "commit" those changes to the repository and that change can be accessible at anytime in the future.

 

One of the biggest appeals of Git is collaboration.  This is achieved through something known as "branches" where two programmers can take their own copy of a repository and work on it themselves without interfering with each other.  The commits (changes) to those repository copies are then "merged" together when ready.  However, it is important to note where this "repository" is hosted and that is where GitHub comes in.

 

GitHub is a Git repository hosting platform which makes it easy to manage Git projects which have lots of collaborators.  It provides an interface which simplifies Git operations and has a bunch of other cool project management tools on top of that.

 

GitHub has loads of documentation available to help you which is available here: https://docs.github.com/.  There is also a guides section which will walk you through typical tasks perform on GitHub: https://guides.github.com/.

[Sauron]

Github is a service that provides online hosting for your git repositories.

 

Don't know what a git repository is? here: https://git-scm.com/

[oats_0968]

Oh ok thanks everyone

I didn't know a lot of things before, but now I understand how to use github.

[virtual machine noob]

i started yesterday with github and watched  some videos and i got to know how to use it