Git

Version Control System, or VCS, allows you to save a snapshot of your coding project at any time you want. It's like making a copy of your project for backup and safe keeping, except that VCS typically does this in a more efficient fashion. It also comes with facilities to restore to an earlier copy (version).

Git is the world's most popular VCS. It can keep a complete history of the changes made to code, and revert back to old versions when needed. This feature comes handy when you want to make changes to code without losing the original.

Git also facilitates synchronizing code between different people, thus making collaboration in a team very easy. This feature leads to increases productivity in particular in large software project that involves many developers.

Every time you save a new version of your project, Git requires you to provide a short description of what was changed. This helps to understand how the project evolved between versions.

I use Git for almost all my coding project, even when the project is small and I am the only one working on it. I do this because the history of changes helps me understand what happened, when I visit the project later.

In this course we will be using Git. Follow the instructions provided here to setup Git on your computer.

To check if Git is installed, open terminal in Linux or MacOS, or "Git Bash" on Windows. Then run the following command:

git --version

When you use Git for the first time, you must tell Git who you are! Configure git as follows:

git config --global user.email "you@example.com" 
git config --global user.name "Your Name"