Coursera - The Data Scientist's Toolbox - Week 2 - Introduction to Git

"Version control is a system that records changes to a file or set of files over time so that you can recall specific versions later."

Why is version control important?

Many of us constantly create something, save it, change it and then save it again. Version (or revision) control is a means of managing this process in a reliable and efficient way. It is especially important when collaborating with others.

"Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency."

Git:

• was created by the same people who developed Linux
• is the most popular implementation of version control today
• stores everything in local repositories on your computer
• is operated from the command line

You can download Git here.

Open Terminal. Now it's time to configure your username and email. Each commit to a Git repository (repo) is tagged with the username of the person who made the commit.

    $ git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"
    $ git config --global user.email "name@example.com"
    

You only have to type this once and can always change these later using the same commands.

To confirm your changes:

$ git config --list

You can exit Terminal by typing

$ exit