An Introduction to GitHub for Developers: A Beginner’s Guide

tags: [“GitHub”, “developers”, “open source”, “software collaboration”, “bug tracking”, “social coding”, “pull requests”, “project management”, “commits”, “webhooks”, “services”]

GitHub is a website that serves as a hub for millions of developers to collaborate on open source projects. It hosts billions of lines of code and acts as a platform for developers to share their software and report any issues they encounter. As a developer, understanding GitHub is crucial as it is a powerful tool that can improve your workflow and allow you to integrate other applications into your development process. In this blog post, we will explore the key concepts of GitHub and its important features.

Introduction to GitHub

GitHub is a platform built around Git where developers gather every day to collaborate on open source software. It provides a space for developers to share, review, and contribute code. If you are not familiar with Git, you can refer to the Git guide for more information.

As a developer, you will come across GitHub in your daily work, whether it’s hosting your own code or utilizing other people’s code. Understanding the fundamental concepts of GitHub will help you make the most of this platform and enhance your development capabilities.

Why GitHub?

You might wonder why you should use GitHub when there are other similar platforms like BitBucket or GitLab available. While personal preferences and technical reasons come into play, one big advantage of GitHub is its widespread usage. GitHub has gained popularity among developers and has become the go-to platform for hosting code. The network effect resulting from the adoption of GitHub is significant, making it the preferred choice for many developers.

Apart from its widespread usage, GitHub is actively involved in the open source community. Many major codebases have migrated to Git and GitHub due to its convenience and GitHub’s efforts to support and foster the open source ecosystem. As a result, you will find the majority of libraries and projects hosted on GitHub. In addition to open source code, GitHub also offers the convenience of hosting private repositories, making it a versatile platform for all types of development projects.

GitHub Issues

GitHub provides a powerful bug tracking system known as GitHub issues. It allows repository owners to organize, tag, and assign issues to specific milestones. When you open an issue on a project managed by someone else, it remains open until either you or the repository owner close it.

GitHub issues serve as a communication channel between users and developers. While prompt replies cannot be guaranteed as developers are not always paid to support their code on GitHub, some issues are closed with a definitive answer, and others are left open for developers to fix or improve the codebase based on user feedback. It’s essential to understand that GitHub issues are a valuable resource for developers and users alike to collaborate and resolve software-related problems.

GitHub has embraced the concept of “social coding,” which encourages collaboration and interaction among developers. This ideology is reflected in various features provided by GitHub.

Follow

On GitHub, you can follow other developers and their activities. By following a developer or a repository, you can stay updated with their work and contributions. The activity of the developers and repositories you follow will appear in your dashboard, making it easy to keep track of their progress.

Stars

One important GitHub feature is the ability to star a repository. By starring a repository, you mark it as interesting or noteworthy. Starred repositories are added to your “starred repositories” list, which allows you to easily find them in the future. The number of stars a repository has serves as an important rating mechanism. Projects with more stars tend to have more visibility and are considered more important. GitHub even features trending repositories, which are the ones receiving the most stars within a specific time period. Being featured in trending lists can lead to additional exposure and opportunities for a project.

Fork

Forking is a key aspect of GitHub. When you fork a repository, you create a clone of the original repository under your account. This allows you to make changes to the codebase without affecting the original project. Forking is the basis for creating pull requests (PRs), which are proposals for merging your changes back into the original repository. Forking a project allows you to build upon existing code, fix bugs, or add new features. The number of forks a project has indicates its popularity and how widely it is being used.

Popular = Better

The popularity of a repository, as indicated by the number of stars and forks, along with other factors such as the date of the latest commit and the involvement of the author in the issues tracker, can help you assess the reliability and quality of a library or software. Projects with higher popularity and active maintenance are often more reliable and widely used.

Pull Requests

A Pull Request (PR) is a mechanism for submitting changes to a repository. It enables developers to propose modifications, bug fixes, or new features to the original codebase. When you create a PR, you create a copy of the repository and apply your changes to it. Afterward, you can submit the PR to the repository owner, who will review your changes and decide whether to merge them. The time it takes for a PR to be reviewed and accepted varies depending on the project’s size and complexity. Keep in mind that not all PRs are accepted, and there is no guarantee of acceptance.

Projects can have multiple open PRs at any given time. Reviewing and managing PRs is an important aspect of the development process. As a contributor, it is essential to communicate your changes effectively and address any feedback or concerns from the project maintainers.

Project Management

GitHub provides various features to assist with project management and organization.

Projects

GitHub Projects is a powerful tool that allows you to manage and organize your project’s workflow using a kanban board. It helps you track issues, assign tasks, and visualize the progress of your project. While it is still a relatively new feature, GitHub Projects can be a valuable asset for managing and coordinating your development tasks.

Wiki

GitHub offers a Wiki feature, which can be used to create and maintain documentation for your projects. Developers can use this facility to provide user guides, API documentation, or any other relevant information for users or contributors. The GitHub Wiki can be a valuable resource for project documentation and knowledge sharing.

Milestones

Milestones are a way to group related issues together and track progress towards specific goals or releases. By assigning issues to milestones, you can organize and prioritize your work effectively. Milestones can serve as a roadmap for your project, helping you plan and communicate the project’s development timeline and goals.

Releases

GitHub’s release functionality enhances the Git tag feature by providing a robust mechanism for creating and managing releases. While Git tags point to specific commits, releases encompass a complete version of your codebase. They allow you to attach release notes, zip files, and binary assets to represent a fully functional version of your software. Creating a release in GitHub is a manual process that builds upon Git tags. It lets you declare and distribute stable versions of your project, making it easier for users to access and utilize your code.

Comparing Commits

GitHub offers several tools to help you analyze and compare code changes over time. The compare view allows you to compare different branches, tags, or commits. By simply adding /compare to the repository URL, you can access this view and observe the changes made between two references. Comparing commits is particularly useful when you want to understand what changes have been introduced between different versions of your codebase.

Webhooks and Services

GitHub provides features like webhooks and services to enhance your development workflow.

Webhooks

Webhooks enable external services to receive notifications from GitHub when specific events occur, such as code pushes, repository forks, or tag creations. When an event takes place, GitHub sends a POST request to a specified URL. Webhooks can be used to trigger actions on remote servers, such as fetching the latest code updates or initiating continuous integration processes.

Services

Services and GitHub apps are third-party integrations that enhance the development experience or provide additional functionalities. For example, you can set up services like TravisCI or CircleCI to automate your testing process and run tests whenever you push new commits. Other services, like Codeclimate, can analyze your codebase and provide reports on technical debt and test coverage.

Final Words

GitHub is a powerful tool and service that offers numerous benefits for developers. Whether you are working on open source or closed source projects, GitHub can enhance your collaboration and streamline your development process. This tutorial provides an introduction to the key features and concepts of GitHub, but the real experience of working on GitHub should not be missed. Explore GitHub, contribute to open source projects, and leverage the community’s collective knowledge and expertise to take your development skills to the next level.