Getting Started with Git and GitHub (Coursera)

Developed and taught by experienced IBM practitioners, in this course you’ll gain vital skills and hands-on experience using Git and GitHub. Each module contains hands-on labs for you to apply and practice what you learn. The course wraps up with a final project where you will start building your portfolio by creating and sharing a public/open-source GitHub project.

All hands-on activities in this course can be performed using web-browser based tools and interfaces. Installation of any specialized software is NOT required on your own computer in order to complete the course.

Course 5 of 13 in the IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate.

What You Will Learn

- Describe version control and its place in social and collaborative coding ​and in DevOps.

- Explain basic Git concepts such as repositories, branches, and project management.

- Use GitHub and Git commands to collaborate on a team project.

- Build your portfolio by creating and sharing an open-source project on GitHub.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Git and GitHub Fundamentals

Application developers rarely work alone. Large web/cloud/mobile development and data science projects will include many people – front-end developers, back-end developers, database administrators, repository administrators, and others. Every change by every contributor must be tracked and controlled to enable collaboration, accountability and version management. This type of distributed version control is extremely important when managing both small and large software projects. In this module you will learn about some of the popular version control tools, create a GitHub account and use the GitHub web interface to create a repository, add a file to it and commit your changes.

WEEK 2

Using Git Commands and Managing GitHub Projects

Branches are the heart of workflows in Git-based version control systems like GitHub. In this module you will become familiar with creating and using branches, and merging your changes to the main branch with Pull Requests. As you start working with GitHub repositories and automating workflows, using the web interface can be limiting and more time-consuming. This is where Git commands come in. You can use from your own desktop or a Cloud IDE - wherever you develop your code. In this module you will also become familiar with and utilize various Git commands to clone and fork repositories, as well as commit, push and pull your changes using the command line.

WEEK 3

Final Project

Now that you are familiar working with GitHub repositories, Branches, and Git commands, in this final project you will apply your knowledge and skills to create a GitHub Project, add few files to it such as an open-source license, and share it publicly.