Go back to the index for the all the Git and GitHub topics.

Recall from class: Git is version control on your computer and GitHub is a web location to place your repositories (collections of files and folders for projects) for sharing and ease of access. This walks you through the steps of choosing a folder location on your computer for this course (and perhaps other projects in the future) and gives some rationale as to the “whys”. Remember, GitHub is like dropbox. The folder being created below is like your local copy of dropbox–except you must make them talk to each other in a smart way.

Create a local directory

For Mac users:

  1. Create a new folder called “Repositories” in your home directory. This is where we will do our work over the term.

  2. You may need to add your home directory to favorites first.
    • Open Finder.
    • Click show path bar in the View Menu tab.
    • The path with your user name should be at the bottom of the Finder window.
    • Drag your user name into Favorites. You now have a quick link to the path ‘/User/yourcomputername/’
    • Create a folder called “Repositories” here.

  3. Return to the index for the all the Git and GitHub topics.. In a few steps you will put your class repository here and make git and github talk to this directory.

For Windows users:

  1. Create a new folder called “Repositories” in your “C:” drive. This is where we will do our work over the term.

  2. Return to the index for the all the Git and GitHub topics.. In a few steps you will put your class repository here and make Git and GitHub talk to this directory.

I have a GitHub account, what is the purpose of this folder?

Remember GitHub is a central place to put your files for sharing and backup. GitHub makes it possible to access your work from nearly any computer. But, working only in GitHub is limiting. It is really just a fancy text editor. No SAS, no R studio, no word.

I work in dropbox, why not put my folder there?

Dropbox has autosync, which is fabulous…just not for this. The functions in dropbox can overwrite changes prior to you using your version control tools. This makes it likely that changes will be lost, especially when working collaboratively.

I have a different folder for class material?

If you put your repository in your class folder you may have to do more set up overtime. The goal here is to make a folder that all version controlled work exists in and leave your other stuff alone.