Github for Dummies

Code collaboratively with GitHub

Once you’ve learned the basics of coding the next step is to start sharing your expertise, learning from other coding pros, or working as a collaborative member of development teams. GitHub is the go-to community for facilitating coding collaboration, and GitHub For Dummies is the next step on your journey as a developer.

Written by a GitHub engineer, this book is packed with insight on how GitHub works and how you can use it to become a more effective, efficient, and valuable member of any collaborative programming team.

• Store and share your work online with GitHub
• Collaborate with others on your team or across the international coding community
• Embrace open-source values and processes
• Establish yourself as a valuable member of the GitHub community

From setting up GitHub on your desktop and launching your first project to cloning repositories, finding useful apps on the marketplace, and improving workflow, GitHub For Dummies covers the essentials the novice programmer needs to enhance collaboration and teamwork with this industry-standard tool.

Sarah Guthals, PhD is a social software engineer, entrepreneur, and former engineering manager at GitHub. She is coauthor of Helping Kids with Coding For Dummies. Phil Haack is a former engineering director at GitHub and senior program manager at Microsoft. He is author of a number of books on ASP.NET.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started with GitHub.Com 5

Chapter 1: Understanding the Git in GitHub 7

Introducing GitHub 7

Understanding Version Control 8

Git Version Control 8

Try simple Git on the terminal 9

Git branching by collaborator 14

Git branching by feature 15

Git branching for experimentation 16

Git’s Place on GitHub 16

Signing Up for GitHub.com 17

Personalizing Your GitHub.com Account 18

Account 19

Emails 19

Notifications 21

Billing 21

SSH and GPG keys 22

Security 23

Sessions 23

Blocked users 23

Repositories 23

Organizations 23

Saved replies 24

Applications 24

Developer settings 25

Discovering Helpful Resources 25

Chapter 2: Setting Up Your Collaborative Coding Environment 27

Exploring GitHub.com 27

Understanding Your Profile 32

Getting to Know GitHub Desktop 33

Setting up GitHub Desktop 34

Introducing Atom 35

Part 2: Starting Your First Solo Project 39

Chapter 3: Introducing GitHub Repositories 41

Setting Up a Repository 41

Exploring Your Repository 44

Top information 44

Tabs 45

Code tab 46

Modifying README.md 48

Merging a Pull Request 53

Using Issues and Project Boards 56

Creating a project board and an issue 56

Closing an issue 60

Chapter 4: Setting Up a GitHub Website Repo 63

Introducing GitHub Pages 64

Turning a Project Repo into a Website 64

Setting Up a Personal Website Repo 66

Creating Issues for Your Website 69

Setting Up Your Local Environment 71

Cloning a repo in GitHub Desktop 71

Touring GitHub Desktop 72

Opening your repo in Atom 74

Touring Atom 74

Finding Resources for GitHub Pages 76

Chapter 5: Creating a Website with GitHub Pages 77

Jumping into an Existing GitHub Project 77

Accessing the GitHub.com repo 78

Verifying your permissions for the repo 79

Orienting yourself with the project 80

Preparing Your Contribution 83

Creating a branch for your contribution 83

Confirming your branch is published 86

Building Your Personal Website 91

Modifying the title and tagline 91

Adding sections to your website 91

Creating a blog 92

Linking project repos 93

Part 3: Contributing to Your First Project 95

Chapter 6: Forking GitHub Repositories 97

Introducing Forking 97

Cloning, Forking, and Duplicating 98

Cloning a Repository 99

Forking a Repository 100

Fetching changes from upstream 103

Contributing changes to upstream 104

Getting unstuck when cloning without forking 107

Chapter 7: Writing and Committing Code 113

Creating a Repository 113

Writing Code 114

Creating a Commit 116

Staging changes 117

Committing a file 118

Committing multiple file: 119

Writing a Good Commit Message 120

Committing Code with GitHub Desktop 122

Tracking a repository in Desktop 123

Publishing a repository in Desktop 124

Committing in Desktop 125

Using GitHub Conventions in Commit Messages 129

Emojis 129

Issue references 129

Giving credit to coauthors 130

Committing Code from Your Editor 132

Chapter 8: Working with Pull Requests 133

Understanding a Pull Request 133

Pushing Code to GitHub 134

Opening a Pull Request 135

Describing the pull request 138

Adding reviewers 138

Specifying assignees 139

Specifying labels 139

Specifying projects and milestones 139

Creating the pull request 139

Writing a Great Pull Request 140

Knowing your audience 140

Making the purpose clear 141

Keeping it focused 141

Explaining the why 142

A picture is worth a thousand words 142

Including a call to action 143

Reviewing a Pull Request 144

Reviewing the Conversation tab 145

Reviewing the changed files 146

Commenting on code 146

Suggesting changes 148

Finishing the review 150

Reading More About Pull Requests 151

Part 4: Manage and Contribute to Large Projects 153

Chapter 9: Exploring and Contributing to OSS 155

Exploring GitHub 156

Exploring the headline section 156

Discovering repositories 157

Trending repositories 157

Exploring topics 158

Exploring Marketplace apps 160

Exploring Events 160

Exploring collections 160

Getting by with help from your friends 161

Finding Places to Contribute 161

Surveying a Project for Contribution 164

Reading the CONTRIBUTING guide 164

Reading the contributing code guide 164

Reading the code of conduct 165

Setting Contributor Expectations 166

They won’t fix every issue 166

They won’t merge every pull request 166

They don’t owe you anything 167

Keeping Tabs on a Project 167

Chapter 10: Starting Your Own OSS 169

Creating an Open Source Repository 169

Adding a license 170

Adding contributor guidelines 173

Adding a code of conduct 173

Making a Repository Public 173

Enforcing a Code of Conduct 175

Responding with kindness 175

Leveraging the ban hammer 175

Blocking users 176

Writing a README.md File 178

Writing Good Documentation 178

Managing Issues 179

Labeling issues 179

Triaging issues 180

Issue templates 181

Saved replies 183

Ending Your Project 185

Archiving a project 185

Transferring ownership 186

Chapter 11: Inner-Source Your Code on GitHub 189

Why Code in Private? 189

Using GitHub Organizations 190

Creating a GitHub organization 190

Inviting members to your GitHub organization 191

Viewing repositories for your organization 192

Managing members of your organization 193

Creating teams within your organization 195

Using project boards within your organization 196

Setting organization settings 197

Making the Most of Your Teams 199

Creating parent/child teams 199

Discussing teams 200

Assigning CODEOWNERS 201

Best Practices for Inner-Sourcing 204

Repository insights 204

Milestones for larger projects 207

Part 5: Make GitHub Work for You 209

Chapter 12: Collaborating Outside of GitHub 211

Chatting it Up 212

Installing the GitHub app for Slack 212

Subscribing to a repository in a Slack channel 214

Trying out the GitHub Slack integration 217

Getting Trello and GitHub Integrated 219

Installing the GitHub power-up 220

Using the GitHub power-up 222

Managing Notifications with Octobox 225

Chapter 13: GitHub Workflow Integrations 229

Using GitHub for Atom 229

Viewing, checking out, and creating pull requests 230

Viewing issues 233

Following the GitHub package for Atom 235

Using GitHub for Visual Studio Code 235

Interacting with pull requests in VS Code 237

Following the GitHub for VS Code pull requests extension 238

Using GitHub for Unity 239

Using GitHub for Unity in Unity 240

Following the GitHub for Unity extension 242

Using GitHub for Visual Studio 243

Viewing, creating, and reviewing pull requests in Visual Studio 244

Following the GitHub for Visual Studio extension 246

Using GitHub for XCode 246

Using GitHub for IntelliJ 248

Chapter 14: Personalizing GitHub 251

Using Browser Extensions 251

Refining GitHub 252

Taking a GitHub selfie 254

GitHub Apps and Probot 255

Introducing Probot 255

Hosting the app 256

Introducing Glitch 256

Creating a Probot Glitch app 256

Customizing the app 257

Installing the app 259

Taking Action with GitHub Actions 260

Creating a GitHub action workflow 260

Testing a GitHub Action 262

Part 6: The GitHub Ecosystem 263

Chapter 15: Exploring the GitHub Marketplace 265

Introducing the GitHub Marketplace 265

Billing made easy 266

The Marketplace vetting process 267

Listing Your App on the Marketplace 268

Considering Common Apps to Install 270

Continuous integration 271

Code quality 271

Localization 272

Monitoring 272

Dependency management 273

Testing 273

Learning 274

Chapter 16: GitHub and You 275

Understanding Your GitHub Profile 275

Profile picture 277

Status message 277

Personal info and Bio 277

Pinned repositories 278

Contribution graph 279

Contribution activity 281

Starring Repositories 281

Following Users 282

Chapter 17: Attending Events 285

Exploring Types of Events 286

Meet-ups and user groups 286

Regional conferences 286

Hackathons 287

Major conferences 288

Knowing What to Expect at Events 288

Keynotes 289

Conference session tracks 289

Hallway tracks 290

After-hour conference events 290

A respectful professional environment 290

Becoming Familiar with GitHub Events 291

GitHub Universe 291

GitHub Satellite 291

GitHub Constellation 292

Git Merge 292

Speaking at Events 292

Everyone has a story to tell 292

Benefits of being a speaker 293

Finding Funding for Events 293

Part 7: The Parts of Tens 295

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Level Up on GitHub 297

Trial and Error 297

GitHub Help Docs 298

GitHub Learning Labs 300

GitHub In-Person Training 301

Project-Specific Documentation 302

External Community Places 304

Online Coding Tutorials 304

Online Courses and Tutorials 305

Blogs and Twitter 306

Community Forum 307

Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Improve Your Development Workflow 309

Drafting Pull Requests 309

Git Aliases 311

Run Tests Automatically 311

Take Breaks 312

Prototype User Interfaces 313

Scaffold Apps with Yeoman 313

Chrome Web Developer Tools 314

StackOverflow 315

Code Analysis Tools 315

Project Boards 316

Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Being an Effective Community Member 317

Be Respectful and Kind 317

Report Bad Behavior 318

Write Good Bug Reports 318

Be Responsive 320

Submit Pull Requests to Correct Documentation 320

Document Your Own Code 321

Give Credit Where It’s Due 321

Help Get the Word Out 322

Be Proactive and Mentor Others 322

Contribute Outside of GitHub 323

Index 325