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Getting started with Git

October, 2020

Version control: Version control allows you to keep track of your work and helps you to easily explore the changes you have made, be it data, coding scripts, notes, etc. You are probably already doing some type of version control, if you save multiple files, such as Dissertation_script_25thFeb.R, Dissertation_script_26thFeb.R, etc. This approach will leave you with tens or hundreds of similar files, making it rather cumbersome to directly compare different versions, and is not easy to share among collaborators. With version control software such as Git, version control is much smoother and easier to implement. Using an online platform like Github to store your files means that you have an online back up of your work, which is beneficial for both you and your collaborators. Git uses the command line to perform more advanced actions and we encourage you to look through the extra resources we have added at the end of the tutorial later, to get more comfortable with Git. But until then, here we offer a gentle introduction to syncing RStudio and Github, so you can start using version control in minutes.