Introduction

  • Challenges for sharing code include making sure everyone has access to the latest version, everyone can contribute equally, keeping organized, and making sure everyone has equal opportunity to contribute.
  • Branches and pull/merge requests provide mechanisms for individuals to work on the code independently and then integrate those changes into the main codebase.
  • Git workflows are used to stay organized and productive.

Branches

  • Branches allow team members to work on code without impacting the work of other developers or users
  • Create a new branch with the git checkout -b command, for example: git checkout -b my_branch
  • Change to another branch with the git checkout command, for example: git checkout my_other_branch
  • Merge my_branch into the current branch with with the git merge command, for example: git merge my_branch
  • Rebasing rewrites history and can sometimes be used instead of merge, where appropriate
  • Never rebase on a public branch

Pull Requests

  • A Pull Request is a GitHub a process to request that a branch be merged into another branch.
  • Pull requests provide a process and an opportunity for code review before merging branches and can be a mechanism for proposing, discussing, and requesting changes before the branch is merged.

Git Workflows

  • A git workflow describes how a team or group of contributors is to interact with a repository
  • Git workflows keep a team organized and on the same page by helping them understand what state the code is in