1 day workshop: Getting Git: A Beginner’s Guide to Version Control and the Terminal

ABOUT

Git can feel intimidating at first, but with the right foundation, it becomes a powerful tool in your developer toolkit. This hands-on workshop will demystify Git and version control, focusing on key concepts, essential commands, and practical workflows.

You’ll learn to track changes in your code, collaborate with others, and recover from mistakes. Along the way, we’ll get comfortable using the terminal to execute Git commands and build habits for a smooth development workflow.

No prior experience with Git or the terminal is needed—just a willingness to lean into the learning!

### What we will cover

- **What is Version Control**: Understand the purpose of Git and why version control is essential for developers.

- **Understanding the Git graph structure**: To understand git, it's useful to be able to visualise what is happening under the hood

- **Getting Started with Git**: Install Git, configure your environment, and create your first repository.

- **The Git Workflow**: Learn the three stages of Git (Working Directory, Staging Area, and Commit History) and how they work together.

- **Essential Git Commands**: Practice foundational commands like init, add, commit, status, and log.

- **Branching Basics**: Understand branches and why they’re crucial for collaboration. Learn to create, switch, and merge branches.

- **Undoing Mistakes**: Discover how to undo changes safely with commands like checkout, reset, and revert.

- **Connecting to Remote Repositories**: Push and pull changes to/from platforms like GitHub.

- **Introduction to the Terminal**: Gain confidence navigating the terminal, managing files, and running Git commands effectively.

- **Github fundamentals**: Github is one of many online platforms that help you set up, manage and collaborate on Git repos. Learn the basics of this powerful platform and what it can do for you

### Hands-on exercises

Participants will work on interactive exercises to reinforce learning, including:

- Creating and managing a new Git repository for a simple project.

- Simulating a typical Git workflow: making changes, staging files, committing updates, and viewing history.

- Experimenting with branching to work on features or bug fixes independently.

- Resolving common issues like merge conflicts in a guided and approachable way.

- Pushing a project to GitHub and collaborating with a partner on a small task.

### Who should attend

This workshop is for anyone new to Git or the terminal. Whether you’re just starting out in programming, transitioning into development, or looking to boost your confidence in version control, this workshop will set you on the right path.