BASIC Step 3: Using git for worksheets 11+
If you have finished with the first worksheets series of BASIC, you may want to continue on with "advanced" BASIC. In this part of BASIC, you will learn how to use Git tools.
Why do we need special Git tools to get access to BASIC materials? Github is a way of sharing your code with other people. There is a "master" version hosted by Git, as well as your own local version ("head"), located on your computer. This way, you can make some changes to code without everybody immediately being affected; the changes that you make on your local machine have to be "pushed" into the master in order for it to be accessible to others. All of our lab code is stored in Git repositories, which means that we can easily share between computers without wrecking everything for everybody whenever we are trying to make an update.
BASIC has a separate repository from the main lab repositories, called "comppedagogy". This means that you can get your git legs under you in a sandbox where nothing "important" can be affected before working on code in the main lab repositories. If you've completed main BASIC already, you've already seen this repository when working on Worksheet A. Now you will have access to edit this code, in addition to viewing it.
To access these materials, follow these instructions:
Make a Github account
Make a GitHub account at https://github.com/ if you don't already have one. Then Slack the lab manager and ask for write permission to the comppedagogy repository.
Install GitHub Desktop
To access the git repository, we'll use a user-friendly interface called GitHub Desktop. Install GitHub desktop to your personal computer. After installing open GitHub Desktop and sign in.
Clone the comppedagogy repo to your computer
In the top left of GitHub Desktop, go to File >> Clone Repository. In the pop-up, choose URL, then paste https://github.com/blab-lab/comppedagogy in the "URL" field. In the Local Path field, choose wherever you'd like the files to be saved on your personal computer.