Course Introduction

The purpose of this class is to get you familiar with version control, specifically Git. This is a hands-on class that consists of reading about concepts and then practicing those concepts with walk-through labs. Git can only be mastered through lots of practice, so we will be doing a lot of labs that involve interacting with existing repositories. In future classes, you will then start to use Git when working on team assignments.

Before we get started learning about Git, we need to introduce basic terminal usage. You will primarily be using the terminal to interact with Git in this class. While you can do most basic Git operations using a Graphical User Interface (GUI), advanced operations will require you to use the terminal. We will leverage the integrated terminal of VSCode to interact with Git.

Reading

Reading is expected to take about 3-4 hours. We will be using a free (but well written) book for this module which you can download here. Once you have downloaded the book, read the following chapters as well as the post on the integrated terminal in VSCode before you attempt the homework section.

• Chapter 1 - What Is the Shell?
• Chapter 2 - Navigation
• Chapter 3 - Exploring the System
• Chapter 4 - Manipulating Files and Directories
• The History of Version Control

Homework

Homework is expected to take about 3-4 hours. The time commitment in this module can vary widely because you will be downloading and installing tools which can take more time depending on your personal computing configuration.

• Sign up for a FREE GitHub student account
• Install VSCode and Git
• Complete the module reading quiz (Canvas)
• Complete the history of version control essay (Canvas)

Getting a GitHub Student Developer pack requires that you use your University email address! It may take a few days for GitHub to approve your account but don’t worry, you will be able to complete all the labs with the standard free account. The student account just gives you access to cool resources that you would normally have to pay for.

Retrospective - Class Interaction

Retrospectives are expected to take about 2-3 hours. This includes the time required to create your own video or discussion post and then watch and read posts from other students and your instructor.

• Complete the module retrospective assignment (Canvas)

Even though this is an online asynchronous course we will still have interactions with each other in the form of discussion posts or video interactions. On Canvas you will see a retrospective posted for each module that will require you to interact (in an asynchronous manner) with your fellow students and instructors.

A class of 90+ students can produce a huge amount of content that is impossible for one person to consume in a reasonable time frame. For example, my classes typically have well over 30+ hours of student produced content each week. So as your instructor it is absolutely impossible for me to watch every single post in its entirety. I will select a few posts from each student over the course of the semester to watch and give feedback on. If you have a question please send a direct email to your instructor as I may not see questions asked in the middle of a video.