Not to be confused with GitLab
Git is a Distributed Version Control System
(DVCS) created by Linus Torvalds during his work on the linux kernel. It allows developers to track their changes, work
collaboratively, and even tag special versions of the codebase for release. Git is by and far the most widely used version
in the software development world (though in companies spanning multiple decades, you may still encounter
Subversion, a
Concurrent Versions System).
Git's central unit is a repository, or collection of similar files in a folder structure. A repository is updated via commits,
which are simply lists of additions, subtractions, and changes to files in the repository's last commit. Git repositories can have
branches, which allow multiple versions of the code to exist at one time. Branches can also be merged into other branches, or
deleted. A request to merge one branch onto another is called a Pull Request. Sometimes, PRs have conflicts, and conflicts can be
resolved by manually editing the files, using an IDE, or a web client like GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, or BitBucket, all of which
are git servers used in the industry.
Git can be installed from the official website. It can also be installed through a package manager
like apt (debian), brew (MacOS), or chocolatey (Windows). There are also GUI Clients like GitHub Desktop
and GitKraken. Many editors, like PyCharm, Visual Studio Code, vim, XCode, and Visual Studio
also have git functionality built in or installable via well-maintained community plugins.
To do this lab, install git on your system and clone this repository. Next, create a repository locally or in a hosted service. Finally,
copy the contents of the first folder into your repository (so that README.md is in the root of the directory) and follow the instructions
in the README.md file.