What Is A Version Control System?
It is a program designed to help you collaborate on projects
with other programmers. For
example, git and SVN.
Version control systems like git uses a repository. A repository is
a directory on your computer that git uses to keep track of all the changes in
the project.
Let me give you an example to help you understand the above
lines. Let’s say, you are working on a big project and many of your programmer
friends are involved in it (by the way if you have any friends who are
interested in programming, do tell them about Noob Code Pro). Now all your
friends live at different places in the world. You are the project manager/team
leader. You come up with the brilliant idea of using git in order to complete
the project. Now you login to your git account and create a project and share
it with your friends and tell them what part of the project each one of them
has to do. So they all accept it but before working on the project, every
programmer involved has to submit a repository to git. The repository will be
the directory in which they will be saving the files related to the project.
This is done so that git can keep track and the other programmers are updated
on each other’s progress. For example, your friend Chris is supposed to build
the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the app you are working on. So how are
you supposed to know Chris’ progress? Git asks Chris to submit a repository
where he will be working on the GUI. This will keep you updated on his
progress. I hope you now understand how repository works.
Now, the repository that each person created on their
computer is called a local repository. There
is a central repository which is
hosted on a website like GitHub that all local repositories communicate with to
stay in sync with each other.
Note:
Keep in mind that git is a VCS (Version Control System) and
GitHub is a cloud-based hosting service that lets you manage git repositories.
We can create a new central repository from the GitHub
website in the following way:
1) 1) You will need a GitHub account to continue. Go to the GitHub website <link>and login or a sign up for an account
2)
Once you have set up you GitHub
account, create a new repository by clicking on the ‘+’ sign at the top right
corner and selecting ‘New Repository’.
3) Give your repository a name and a description(optional) and click ‘Create Repository’
4)
You can see the new Central
Repository you created when you go to your profile.
Once you create a central repository, you can use git to
create local repositories but first you must have git installed on your
computer, you can install git by following this article. Now, you can use git to create local repositories
that communicate with the central repository by following these steps:
1)
Go to Your Repositories
2)
Navigate to your Central
Repository
3)
Copy this link
4) Open your command line and type in
the command : git clone <link you just copied>
5) Git will install your local repository
in whatever directory you ran the command from
6)
This new directory is your local
repository.
Updating the Central Repository:
When a programmer finishes making changes in his local
repository, he sends the changes to the central repository, so that the other
programmers working on the project can download it.
You can use the following commands to make changes to the
central repository:
Note:
The following commands must be executed inside the local
repository. To bring the command prompt inside the repository, use the ‘cd’
command followed by the repository name. For me the name is ‘Test’, therefore I
will use the command ‘cd Test’ to
get inside my repository.
Pushing:
Updating your central repository with changes from your
local repository is called pushing.
Command: git push origin master
If you encounter a stupid “src-refspec” error, try the
solution given in this
article
Pulling:
Updating your local repository with changes from your
central repository is called pulling.
Command:
git pull origin master
Add: Adding
a file means, telling git what files you want to update changes about. For
example, if you add ‘Test’ file, you are basically telling git that you
are going to update the changes made to
the ‘Test’ file. The next command will actually update the central repository
about the changes.
Commit:
It means giving the command to git to tell it the changes
you made to the local repository.
Command: git commit –m ‘<a message>’`
Staging A File:
This means deciding which changes you want to push. For
example, if you create a file called ‘hi.py’.
Then, in order to stage the file, execute the following command:
git add hi.py
If you want to unstage a file, execute:
git reset hi.py
You can use the command ‘git remote –v’ to print the url, your local
repository is pushing to and pulling from.
Note: Enter the command in your local
repository.
CONGRATULATIONS !!! You now know what Version Control Systems are and how you can use GitHub to expand your horizons. Play around with GitHub and explore it. Like I always say, Have fun with it !!! Good luck !!!!
So, this was an introduction to Package Managers and PIP in Python. Stay tuned for another article next week, same time, where we will learn about a very important and a fun topic viz Web Scraping. So more cool stuff coming your way, DON’T MISS IT !!
I hope this article answered all of your questions and even helped you in becoming a better programmer. IF IT DID, leave a like AND FOLLOW THIS BLOG TO BECOME A PROFESSIONAL PYTHON PROGRAMMER FROM A TOTAL BEGINNER. IF IT DIDN'T, feel free to ask any further queries in the comment section below.
HOPE YOU HAVE AN AWESOME DAY AHEAD !!!
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