Session 4: Basic Git workflow

Track, organize and share your work: An introduction to Git for psychological research

Course at University of Hamburg

Slides | Source

Dr. Lennart Wittkuhn

lennart.wittkuhn@uni-hamburg.de

Konrad Pagenstedt

konrad.pagenstedt@uni-hamburg.de

April 29 2024 (12:15 pm)

Agenda

• 1 Admin
• 2 Last week: Setup and first steps with Git
• 3 Live demonstrations
• 4 This week

1 Admin

How can I download the slides as PDF?

Instructions can now be found above the slides on the course website:

How can I download the slides as PDF?

To print the slides to PDF, do the following:

1. Toggle into Print View using the E key (or using the Navigation Menu).
2. Open the in-browser print dialog (CTRL/CMD+P).
3. Change the Destination setting to Save as PDF.
4. Change the Layout to Landscape.
5. Change the Margins to None.
6. Enable the Background graphics option.
7. Click Save.

Note: This feature has been confirmed to work in Google Chrome, Chromium as well as in Firefox.

Here’s what the Chrome print dialog would look like with these settings enabled:

These instructions were copied from the Quarto documentation (MIT License) and slightly modified.

When do I have to “Take the quiz”?

• Many chapters contain a “Take the quiz!” button
• These are the same quizzes that we assign to your as part of the sessions’ learning objectives
• TL;DR: Take the quiz when we tell you

lennartwittkuhn.com/version-control-book/chapters/first-steps-git.html

Will we also learn about Python or R?

• No, not directly, but you are free to use Git to track Python or R files that you use for other projects
• We will have a Quarto workshop in two weeks:

More questions from last week

“Where can I find an overview of all the commands we learned about?”

See the Cheatsheet section at the end of each chapter in the Version Control Book.

“How can I enable copy-paste in Git Bash?”

1. Click on the Git Bash icon in the top-left corner.
2. Choose Options.
3. Go to Keys menu.
4. Enable Copy and Paste (Ctrl/Shift + Ins) option.
5. Click Apply and Save.

“How do I find the Users folder on Windows?”

• Use ~
• If pwd is at /: you can still use cd C:

“What should my recipes folder look like?”

At least, a folder with recipes.txt inside with at least one commit.

2 Last week: Setup and first steps with Git

Schedule

No	Date	Title	Contents	Reading	Survey/Quiz
1	2024-04-08	Introduction to version control	Organisational matters Overview of seminar sessions Introduction to version control Introduction to Git and its advantages	Intro to version control	Course introduction Survey
2	2024-04-15	Command line	File Systems Benefits of the Command Line Basic Command Line commands	Command Line	Command Line Quiz
3	2024-04-22	Setup + Git Fundamentals	Installation and configuration of Git Initializing a Git repository Basic Git commands	Installation, Setup, First steps with Git	Installation Survey, Git Basics Quiz
4	2024-04-29	Basic Git workflow	Practicing basic Git commands Ignoring files with .gitignore Good commit messages	First steps with Git	Git Basics Quiz
5	2024-05-06	Git Branching and Merging	Understanding branches in Git Creating and switching between branches Merging branches Resolving merge conflicts	Branches	Git Branches Quiz
6	2024-05-13	Quarto Workshop	Introduction to Quarto
7	2024-05-20	Whit Monday	Cancelled
8	2024-05-27	Introduction to GitHub	Introduction to remote repositories Creating a GitHub account Creating and managing repositories on GitHub Pushing and pulling changes	GitHub Intro	GitHub Quiz
9	2024-06-03	GitHub with collaborators	Cloning a remote repository Branching and merging in a collaborative environment Pull Requests GitHub Issues Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), e.g., GitKraken	GitHub Intro, GitHub Issues	GitHub Quiz
10	2024-06-10	GitHub with the world	Forking a remote repository README files Project Management	GitHub Intro, GitHub Issues	GitHub Quiz
11	2024-06-17	Repetition and Practice	Repetition and Practice
12	2024-06-24	Publishing	Creating Tags with Git Creating Releases with GitHub Using Zenodo for scientific publishing Licences Citation Files	Tags and Releases
13	2024-07-01	Graphical User Interfaces (cancelled)	Repetition and Practice Introduction to using GUIs	Graphical User Interfaces
14	2024-07-08	Summary & Wrap-Up	Course evaluation Repetition and Practice Introduction to using GUIs	Graphical User Interfaces

Last week: Setup and first steps with Git

lennartwittkuhn.com/version-control-book/chapters/first-steps-git.html

Last and this week’s learning objectives

Setup

💡 You know how to set up Git for the first time
💡 You have set up Git on your computer
💡 You understand the difference between the three Git configuration levels
💡 You know how to configure your username and email address in Git
💡 You have set up your preferred text editor when working with Git
💡 You can escape the command-line text editor Vim

First steps with Git

💡 You can initialize a Git repository
💡 You can stage and commit changes
💡 You know how to explore the commit history
💡 You can compare different commits
💡 You know how to use and create a .gitignore file
💡 You can discuss which files can (not) be tracked well with Git and why
💡 You know how to track empty folders in Git repositories

Note: These are the learning objectives for this and next week.

Staging and Committing

Staging:

• Command: git add
• Purpose: Preparing and organizing files before they are recorded in the repository’s history.

Committing:

• Command: git commit -m "commit message"
• Purpose: Saving the changes in the staged files to the repository’s history, creating a snapshot.

Source: git-scm.com

git log

git log

e.g:

commit 3f6db14ed93d6e92a207a9a3ac5f8b8c5c5c5c34 (HEAD -> main, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: Jane Doe <jane@example.com>
Date:   Tue Apr 24 14:24:48 2024 -0700

    Fix the widget rendering issue in the dashboard

commit a4324f44d3e85723a4d91cb9e07132b7115e4941
Author: John Smith <john@example.com>
Date:   Mon Apr 23 16:17:59 2024 -0700

    Update dependencies to newer versions

commit fa204b9145bf7fc7ff226a26b49a567fc2eb1b94
Author: Alice Johnson <alice@example.com>
Date:   Sun Apr 22 15:08:43 2024 -0700

    Initial commit of project files

commit b9690b287bdfec6e17af39b7337b84e9ebf6f046
Author: Lennart Wittkuhn <lennart.wittkuhn@tutanota.com>
Date:   Fri Mar 22 15:19:43 2024 +0100

    move illustration of bad git commits (xkcd comic) and edit sentence

commit d8d770dd84cd19086f41d8d38752b223c8130859
Author: konradpa <konrad@pagenstedt.de>
Date:   Wed Mar 6 13:51:13 2024 +0100

    add image to setup chapter

commit 074c9f6e12dd5fc8cc61de9f31efbdbce41a7583
Author: konradpa <konrad@pagenstedt.de>
Date:   Wed Mar 6 13:51:07 2024 +0100

    add image to rewriting history chapter

Terminology: What are “branches”?

See next week!

lennartwittkuhn.com/version-control-book/chapters/branches.html

Terminology: What is HEAD?

lennartwittkuhn.com/version-control-book/chapters/first-steps-git.html#head

3 Live demonstrations

4 This week

Today’s chapter

lennartwittkuhn.com/version-control-book/chapters/first-steps-git.html

Your turn

1. Content Review: Read the chapter “First steps with Git” in the Version Control Book. Start at “Logging commits”
2. Implementation: Try out the commands in the chapter! Play around! Have fun!
3. Exercises: Complete the implementation exercises (see below).
4. Quiz: Complete the online quiz.

Implementation Exercises

1. Commit at least three changes in recipes.txt.
2. Make at least one commit using git commit --amend.
   • For example, add a recipe without a title first, commit, then add a title and use git commit --amend to add the title change to the same commit.
3. Create a .gitignore file
   • Everyone: Create a random file that you want to ignore, for example random-file.docx.
   • All macOS users: Let your repository ignore .DS_Store
4. 🚀 Optional: Commit .gitkeep in an otherwise empty directory

Ask questions!

Let’s git started!