What are Git & GitHub

Git is an open source version control system (VCS) that has gained a lot of traction in the programming community. We will use version control to keep track of the files we write, and the changes we make to them. Using Git, we can roll back to any previous version of a file, and easily collaborate with others on source code.

GitHub is a (commercial) platform which allows you to host your source code online. It also offers a set of collaborative tools to manage “Issues”, and track progress on project boards.

Installing and Setting Up Git & GitHub

Let’s create a GitHub account

• Please register for a GitHub account, and claim your education benefits for students and professors afterwards.
• You can also watch our YouTube video where we will walk you through the sign-up procedure.

Install Git on your computer

Watch our YouTube video, in which we walk you through the setup on Windows.

Download and install the latest versions of Git here.

Additional instructions for Windows Users

After installing the programs use Windows Explorer to go to a folder that contains some documents (any folder) and right click on it.

You should see some additional items - “Git Bash here”, or “Git GUI here” appear in the context menu upon right-clicking.

Additional instructions for Mac Users

Download the setup files from the link above. If your system says the file can’t be opened (because it is from an unidentified developer), then open it via right-click and open.