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Farhan Yahya
Farhan Yahya

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Collaborative coding with GitHub/GitLab

Initialising the project

This is simply the step where the project is being created or initialized onto the version control platform.

Things used for collaborative works

  1. Branches
  2. Issues
  3. Pull/Merge requests
  4. Merging code

Branches

This is the heart of collaborative working. Branches enable us to modify the project's code without messing the original one and if the branch works as expected the changes can be added or merges into the original code.
To begin working on a project you'll have to fork it first

Issues

Issues are used in many ways.

  1. To request an additional feature for the project
  2. To report a buggy code
  3. To make suggestions on pre-existing code

Pull Requests

This is used when one wants to add his/her changes which work as said in the Branches section to the existing code.
In the other way, pull requests are used to resolve issues.

Example: There is an issue that states that there should be an update on all submit buttons in the code. If more than one developer works on that? they are to create new branches per developer with different names but their pull requests should all refer to the same issue. The team then tests all the branches to figure out which of the codes fixes the problem then that branch gets merged into the real code.

Merging

This is simply the act of merging a branch which solves a particular issue.

Extra resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3jLJU7DT5E

Top comments (1)

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Simon Massey

If folks are wanting to understand more about how git works I can highly recommended reading Git From The Bottom Up. Its explains the underlying concepts and that makes it far easier to search for and understand the commands that go beyond the basics.