What is GitHub? A basic guide to start exploring it
15 February 2023
Head of Marketing and Communication
If you are interested in the world of web development, there are several tools that are essential for you to know. To start getting to know one of the most important ones, first you need to know what GitHub is.
To begin with, it is worth noting that GitHub is positioned as a free online repository for project management. It is also used for version control of your code. It is widely used by developers to store their work. It also has the advantage of allowing us to collaborate with other professionals.
To some extent, when you ask yourself what GitHub is, one of the first things - in a simplified way - we can say is that it is a social network for developersThis repository is one of the most popular. With it, it is possible to follow and interact with people who are interested in a certain project, get to know the ones we have or even cooperate in the project of third parties.
In this article we will explain in detail what GitHub is, how it works, and what you can use it for.
To continue to unpack what GitHub is, you should know (if you don't already know) that it is based on the famous Git technology. Regarding this system, you should know that Git is a tool for version control that has been distributed as open source and developed by Linus Torvalds, who was also the person who created Linux.
As it is a distributed version control system, developers can download software, make the changes they deem appropriate and upload the modified version.
You could say that GitHub is also like a social network for developers.
The difference between a version control and a Git repository is that in the latter solution the developer has a copy of the original source code and the versions that are available for the project on the computer, so that it can be merged and branched.
This is how all developers who have an interest in the project will be able to see the changes being made and contribute to the best version of the software code.
Once we know this, we only need to know that GitHub is a platform based on Git technology and that it simplifies and extends the functionalities available through it.
If you really want to understand what GitHub is and how it is used or why it is used by thousands of people worldwide, you need to know its most important parts.
When it comes to how to use the GitHub repository we should know that the repository is the path or location where all the information about a project is stored. This can be the case for images, code, folders, documents, etc.
Each of the projects has its own repository, which means that the path will be unique to each project in question.
If you want to work with a particular part of the project in isolation and without affecting the main repository, you need to do so using Branches.
In this sense, what a Branch does is a exact copy of the project to carry out tests without fear of making mistakes and without them affecting the whole of the work to be carried out.
As you work your way up new changes in a branch of the project, you should alert other contributors so that they can validate or not your pull request.
In a team, it is usually the tech leads those in charge of reviewing the pull requests The members of the group have to try to find possible failures or propose improvements.
With the Tag control of a repository status can be established by providing information to other users about the current version of the project in question.
This action is called 'Tagging' and is of great importance when it comes to managing the life of a project.
Another of the most commonly used options on GitHub is the 'Fork' option. With this option you can creating a new project from one that has already been createdThis will allow changes to be made, always preserving the repository itself and not in the original repository.
This option makes it easier to grow projects and allows developers to continue improving the software on their own. and if an improvement is made to the main repository it can also be deployed to your cloned project. On GitHub, this option is known as forking.
GitHub is ideal for managing development projects, so that projects can be shared with a large community of developers who will surely be happy to improve and cooperate on the software, providing feedback or improvements that will add more value to the final development.
In addition, when you have a version manager like GitHub, you can see all the changes in the project since its inception.
When you start to go to In the subject of what GitHub is and how it is used, it should be noted that it offers a number of advantages, which are listed below:
At present, the way in which the developers carry out their professional work has evolved. There are now a number of teams that are made up of staff from all over the world doing work on the same code.
GitHub makes this kind of collaboration possible. So if you're just getting started with software developmentIf you are not familiar with this type of tool, you need to familiarise yourself with it.
Learning the steps involved in the process of working with Git and GitHub can be overwhelming at times, but once you get the hang of it, practice will do the rest. In no time at all, you'll be enjoying sharing the work you do with a community in continuous development and which is growing all the time.
As you have been able to see, in this tour that we have done to break down what GitHub is, you must have realised that it has arrived to make developers' work easier. It is really worth knowing how to use a tool that continues to improve daily and make life easier for professionals thanks to its features and a community that is constantly growing.
If you want to learn how to use this tool in depth, one of the best alternatives is to sign up for one of the Bootcamps specialised in Web Development that you can find in the academic programme of IMMUNE Technology Institute. In our training you will learn everything you need to become an professional programmerincluding of course the use of GitHub.
If you are looking for technology training fill in the form for more information.