“What is GitHub?” is a common question that a lot of people ask online. In fact, there are over a million Google results for that query. Even if you aren’t a developer, you’ve probably heard of it (yet). 

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a social networking site for programmers and developers. Here, programmers and coders post their code and interact with one another. They can follow great programmers in the same way that everyone follows their idols on Instagram or Twitter. This is GitHub for computer geeks. They are inspired by their idols and can learn different styles of programming through GitHub.

With its unparalleled popularity, GitHub is regarded as an essential tool for software engineers. It currently has over 25 million users. This means that GitHub is being used by a large number of professionals to improve workflow and collaboration.

How does GitHub work?

Users sign up for GitHub accounts, upload files, and create coding projects. However, the real work of GitHub occurs when users begin to collaborate.

  • Even though anyone can code on their own, most development projects are made by groups of people working together. Sometimes these teams are all in the same place at the same time, but more often they work in different places at different times. There are numerous challenges to developing collaborative projects with distributed teams. GitHub simplifies this process in several ways.

  • First of all, all of the code and documentation are in one place. This reduces problems with access for anyone who wants to help with a project. Each repository also has instructions and other details that help define project goals and rules.

  • Next, coding is more creative and abstract than most non-technical people think. For example, say two developers are working on different pieces of code. Both of these pieces of code should work together. But sometimes one piece of code can make the other code not work. Or, a piece of code can change how another piece of code works in a way that nobody expected.

  • GitHub fixes these problems by showing how both files will affect the main branch. It finds these mistakes before pushing changes, making the coding process more efficient.

  • GitHub also makes it easier to track changes and go back to earlier versions of a project. To explain this, we’ll need to understand Git, the technology that GitHub is built on, and talk about version control.

What is Git?

Git is the most popular version control system. Git tracks the changes you make to files, so you have a record of what has been done and can revert to specific versions if necessary. Git also makes it easier to work together because changes made by more than one person can be merged into one source.

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Git is a piece of software that runs locally. Your computer stores your files and their history. You can also use online hosts (such as GitHub or Bitbucket) to keep a copy of the files and their revision history. You can work with other developers more easily if you have a central place where you can upload your changes and download changes from other people. Git can automatically merge the changes, so two people can work on different parts of the same file and then later merge their changes without losing each other’s work!

What is a version control system?

When developers start a new project, they continue to add to the codebase. Even after the project has been released, it is common to update versions, fix bugs, add new tools, and so on.

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The version control system aids in keeping track of changes made to the code base. Furthermore, it keeps track of who made the change and allows you to restore code that has been removed or modified. Because Git saves multiple copies of the code in the repository, there is no code override. If you’re curious about Git, you can find out more here.

10 Useful Github Features that You Need to Know

GitHub has many unique features that make it extremely popular these days. Aside from simple storage, it is an entire ecosystem with a sophisticated social networking component that allows individual developers to contribute to multiple teams and projects. Once you get into the flow of managing repositories with GitHub, you’ll realize how useful it can be.

1.) Simple File Management

If you use GitHub, you’re not limited to one device or environment. GitHub adds an attractive graphical user interface (GUI) on top of Git. Git works on its own through the command line, which is a computer’s text-based interface. Developers know how to use the command line, but for many, it isn’t always the best way to interact with files. The interface of GitHub makes it easy to perform Git actions and see the history of files. This is more convenient for developers and easier for people who are just getting started with Git to use.

2.) Drag and Drop Gist Code

Gist is Github’s own place where you can host code snippets. You can also look around and find a lot of code snippets in a variety of languages. Using Gist is very easy and should be obvious. But did you know that codes can be added directly from files? Simply drag and drop the files onto the Gist, and the codes within the files will be copied immediately. It’s quick and saves a lot of time.

3.) Social Networking

Any GitHub user understands that the platform is more than just a place to code. All GitHub users have profiles that list their projects, contributions, and activity on the site. Anyone can see anyone else’s public profile and repositories. The social network on GitHub is a key part of its success, as it encourages developers to explore and contribute to all kinds of open-source projects. Before, people who wanted to contribute to a project had to ask the owners for permission to do so.

4.) Open-Source Projects

Due to the benefits we’ve learned about, GitHub has boosted open-source collaboration, resulting in many popular software technologies. Without open GitHub repositories, many impressive things like CSS frameworks, data visualization libraries, and a game you might spend too much time playing wouldn’t exist.

5.) GitHub Private Repository

That’s all well and good, but how does GitHub make money when everything is free and open source? The answer is that GitHub offers paid services as well, including private repositories. With a paid plan, teams can work together on GitHub private repository and keep their code hidden behind virtual doors. GitHub also has business solutions that give companies internal tools for working together.

6). Creating a folder using the Web Interface

Many of us manage our GitHub repositories with the free Github app, but Github has also built what they call WebFlow. It lets us manage repositories through Github’s web interface. And this is how you create new folders or files in Github. To create a new folder, end each new input with a /. Or, choose a file extension and click Commit a New File to create a new file.

7.) Using Git URL Shortener

These days, people like to share their photos, status updates, and news on Twitter. If you use Github, you might want to share your repository. But sometimes the URL of the repository is too long to share on Twitter, which only lets you use 140 characters.

There are plenty of ways to shorten the URL, like Bit.ly and Goo.gl, but why not use Github’s own service, Git.io? Git.io will shorten the URL for your GitHub repository. Git.io also has a command line interface, which lets you shorten the URL through Terminal by using the gitio command.

8.) Advanced Security

GitHub security helps us keep our code in repositories safe and secret in all organizations. Some features are available in all repositories, but enterprise editions have more features. Advanced security is on for all repositories. The security policy is available for all repositories, which makes it easy to report security flaws in private. We can talk about and fix the security flaws in private, and then we can put out a security advisory. Dependent alert for updates dependable when pull requests are created. If we use dependable, which automatically sends pull requests that keep dependencies up-to-date. The dependency graph allows us to look at the ecosystems.

9.) Copilot

Modern developers are always looking for ways to make it easier to write codes, which must improve productivity, accuracy, and efficiency. It is a long process. GitHub has a perfect solution for this problem called copilot. Automatic code generation tools were added to GitHub. This is one of the newest tools and is known as an AI pair programmer. This is not just an autocomplete answer, which is based on clues from the code we are writing.

It hints at lines, and sometimes the whole function can also be a hint. It is the fastest way for developers to make tests, explore APIs, etc. If we start using the copilot feature, the tool can automatically adapt to how we write code.

10.) Syntax Highlighting

More than two hundred different programming languages are supported by GitHub’s syntax highlighting. The team at GitHub is constantly looking into new methods for rendering different file formats, such as CSV files, STL 3D models, and GeoJSON maps.

Getting Started Using GitHub

You and your team can try GitHub for free. There is a basic plan that includes unlimited repositories and contributors, but only 500MB of storage space. Besides, you can choose Github paid plan to use GitHub’s many features more effectively.

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Once you choose a plan, fill in the details asked for and finish the registration process. From there, you can start to look around GitHub and see what it has to offer. Unlike Git, GitHub will not require you to know how to code or use command lines.

To Sum Up

GitHub is an excellent platform that has transformed the way developers collaborate. However, anyone who wants to manage their project and collaborate with other contributors can use GitHub. If your team is working on a project that is constantly being updated and you want to keep track of how changes are made, GitHub is an excellent choice. There are other options, like GitLab and BitBucket, but GitHub should be considered. If you want to learn more about GitHub then visit our blog here- themeix.com

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