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April Cook
April Cook

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My Git/Github Learning Adventures

Learning Git and Github have been challenging and fun.
I have found both the confidence and knowledge to move forward and I would like to share some of that journey here.
When I began this class I didn't know anything about coding or really anything about programming at all.
Other than the limited knowledge I've acquired from my oldest son who is in the IT field, I was beginning this adventure with very limited knowledge.
At first my confidence in my ability was non-existent, but each hour and day brings more knowledge and more confidence in my own ability in the IT industry.
This week we focused on learning Git and Github and the challenge did not disappoint! I did multiple exercises fully before I even started to understand what I was doing.
It felt a little frustrating at first and that frustration built monumentally all the way up until one day it all just clicked and suddenly made sense.
WHAT A SENSE OF RELIEF!
Everything I had done up until then suddenly felt familiar and I was able to begin helping my peers and gaining momentum.
When I look back on some of the frustration I was feeling I feel blessed to have the ability to work past it and grow as a person.
Let's take a look at some of the things I've learned on my Git/Github journey!
First, if you're unfamiliar with VCS and how it works this can be quite daunting, but my advice is just keep moving forward because it gets easier!
Git is the command line tool, and GitHub is an open source repository hosting site that facilitates things like work flow and collaboration.
A repository is a a central location in which data is stored and managed, with both local and remote accessibility, giving users the ability to modify and collaborate seamlessly.
When working in the Local repository a user has the ability to pull changes from the remote repository, work and modify locally,then push changes back to the remote with record of change.
GitHub uses something called Github Flavored Markdown (GFM), an easy-to-read/write syntax for formatting plain text.
GFM is a strict superset of CommonMark,and content not specified on the original CommonMark Spec are known as extensions.
The design goal of MarkDown's formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible.
The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, without looking marked up with tags and formatting instructions.
The functionality of Github as an open source is to help programmers and coders collaborate and contribute to each others codes.
It hosts your source code projects in a variety of different programming languages and keeps track of the various changes made to every iteration.
The basic commands used are user friendly, creating an easy environment to work with multiple team members on multiple facets of the project at the same time.
I am still trying to figure out the push and pull operations, and look forward to the "click" that I know is coming, with perseverance.
Onward I march into the Git fray.

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” –Zig Ziglar

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