If you've ever searched the word software development, chances are you've heard of Git or GitHub. Git and GitHub are essential to the software development workflow. These tools help developers manage and host their projects and collaborate with others on the same project.
There's a reason why you’re interested in learning how to use Git and GitHub. You may be working with a team that uses both tools heavily, or you may have found issues on an open-source project hosted on GitHub and want to contribute back to the project.
This article will take you step by step through defining the difference between Git and GitHub, knowing what a version control system and some useful Git commands.
What is a Version Control System?
Before learning the differences between Git and GitHub, we first need to understand what a version control system is. A version control system is also known as source control, and it is a system that tracks changes to a file or set of files over time so that you can recall specific versions later. This allows you to work independently, even in a team with other developers.
Advantages of Version Control System
These are some reasons you should consider using a version control system in your project:
Version control ensures that your changes don't conflict with others using the same repository.
Version control also helps keep track of the history of changes as people save new versions of the codebase.
Every version has a description of what changes were done using commit messages.
Version control helps to create a proper workflow among developers working on a team.
What is Git?
Git is a free and open-source distributed version control system used worldwide for small to large projects created by Linus Torvalds in 2005. Git is primarily installed on your local system (rather than in the cloud) to work on projects on your local computer.
You may refer to Git as a file system tracker, but it is more than that. It is used to store code, track every revision made to a project, and essentially coordinate work amongst teams. Typically, real-life projects have multiple developers working on them, they need Git to ensure that there are no code conflicts and everyone's work is in sync. Git has a branching system that allows developers to work individually on the same task, making it one of its most significant advantages.
Git Repositories
Git and Github are somewhat similar. This means that they both work well together. However, one of them is standalone. GitHub is dependent on Git, while Git can stand alone. Before using Git, you should know what a git repository means. A repository tracks all the changes made to the files in your project over time, meaning you can always reverse back to a previous state or track all the changes made to the repository.
There are 3 popular Git hosting services:
Out of the 3 popular Git hosting services, we’re discussing GitHub because of what this article seeks to inform and also because of its popularity and connection to Git in the ecosystem.
What is GitHub?
GitHub is a web-based internet hosting service for software development using git. It allows you to keep track of your project and share the versions of your projects outside of your local computer. GitHub is especially popular in the programming community with open-source projects because anyone can host a public code repository for free. GitHub versioning software allows you to manage collaboration. Some of its features include;
Fork
GitHub fork allows you to make a copy of a project without affecting the actual repository. This is great for individuals who work in a team or people interested in working on someone else's project to which they do not have access. This gives you access to make changes to a project without affecting the original file.
Pull
When collaborating on a project, a pull request allows individuals to integrate new code changes into the main project's repository. It also notifies team members that the changes have been made and need to be reviewed.
Merge
This is when the user, who is the project's owner, merges your repository to the original file if they find your changes relevant and valuable to the project.
Git vs. Github
To understand the difference between Git and GitHub, let’s outline their differences.
Git | GitHub |
|---|---|
Git is a command line tool | GitHub provides a graphical interface |
Git is a software | GitHub is a service |
Git is installed locally on the system | GitHub is hosted on the web, and it’s cloud-based |
Git manages different versions of edits of files in a git repository | GitHub is a platform to upload copies of your git repository |
Git provides functionalities like version control system source code management | GitHub offers functionalities of Git, like VCS source code management |
Git external tool configuration is minimal | GitHub has a marketplace for tool integration |
Linux manages Git | Microsoft manages GitHub |
Git is free and open-source licensed | GitHub is not open-source |
Git manages source code histories | GitHub acts as a hosting service for git repositories |
Git Vs. GitHub (CLI vs. GUI )
Before you start working with GitHub, you should know some commands used with the Git CLI and GitHub GUI, and this article assumes that you have configured git on your device using git-config and registered your GitHub account.
In this section, we’ll go through the difference between Git and GitHub in their different interface and show what they look like making the same type of commands.
Creating a new repository in Git Vs. GitHub
git init
The process of creating a new repository in Git is lengthier when compared to creating one in Github.
Regardless of how long the process takes, learning the commands in git is very important since you'll use the CLI more often than you think.
The Git init command is used to create a new repository, which can be done in the command line interface or the git bash. But first, you must create a folder for your project using the command mkdir( make directory), after which you can give your project a name.
mkdir my-project
After this step, you have to navigate into the folder by using a command called cd (change directory) it takes you into the folder where you can begin to create your files.
cd my-project
Now that we are inside the my-project folder, the next step is to create our file, and we can do it like so;
touch index.html
This will create a new file called index.html, after which the next step is the git init (initialize) which means that you have successfully created a git repository.
git add adds the files we want to save, e.g., git add index.html.
This specifies what changes you want to make. You can add files you want to commit specifically like we have done with git add index.html. If we create more than one file, for instance, index.html, index.css, or index.js, we can add all the files at once by using the command git add.
On GitHub, all you have to do to create a new repository is to click on the “New Repository” button, after which you'll be taken to another page where you can give your repository a name and description.
