This is the first part of our Git workshop series.

If you have ever written a paper, worked with research data or programmed your own scripts, some of the following problems may sound familiar to you: You have accidentally overwritten something and would like to get it back from an earlier version of your file(s). You find yourself looking through a bunch of older versions wondering what exactly has changed between your current version and the older ones.

Git helps you avoid these sources of frustration. As a version control system, Git lets you easily save changes in your files to a history and thus helps documenting your work. Using that history, you can see what you changed and when you did it. You can always go back and revert your project to an earlier stage, should you have accidentally deleted text or broke some functionality in your code. Git even lets you work together with others on the same project or even on the same file at the same time.

In this workshop, we introduce you to the fundamental features of Git. You will learn how to use Git in your daily work to keep track of changes in your documents or code. Git has been originally designed for software development, but has quickly found users beyond the software community. So if you consider yourself a non-technical person, this workshop is still for you. The Git basics are easy to learn and easy to apply.

Requirements

For this workshop you need a working installation of Git (version 2.23 or above). Downloads and installation instructions for various operating systems can be found here: https://git-scm.com/downloads.

Certificate

This course is part of the Certificate Course "Tools for Digital Research". In order to receive the Library Carpentry Certificate you also have to attend the other two courses.