Source: Memedriod

How I Learnt Version Control

Source: Memedriod

How I Learnt Version Control

Saying I just learnt how to do version control is quite funny because I have been using GitHub for a while now, and I didn’t know anything about version control. Mainly, what I did was learn to use GitHub with git.

So I joined the 7th Cohort of AI Saturday Lagos a few months back, and the learning has been a hit, back to back.

Our week one task was an exciting one (my cohort-7 family 👪 can relate). Everyone had different tasks. For some, It was a “How to create a function.” For others, it was a “How to use Google Colab.” Some students worked on “introduction to Github”. For me, I tasked myself with “how to use Git”. You may see for yourself here.

Before the cohort, I had previously been introduced to version control using git through a Nanodegree I took on Udacity, hosted by AWS: AWS Machine Learning Foundations Nanodegree Program (the Nanodegree was basically an “everything everything” course, so I added MLOPs from it to what I knew already) but git didn’t stick to memory, it was just taught on a light note.

The task: Create a function that describes a function. It was all-encompassing but straightforward 😄 . It included a part of pulling and pushing with git from GitHub. I hadn’t used git before, so I was oblivious of that part. Luckily, I belong to the most fantastic team in the entire cohort; Team Mandala ( a quick shout out to my team members, you guys rock!). My team leader, who has over three years of experience in web development, took it upon himself to make us understand the whole task. We all jump on a call with him for a life-changing tutorial.

For short, here is a summary of what I learnt: git involves cloning, pulling, making branches (optional), adding your changes, committing them, and finally pushing those changes to the repo.

To clone you use: `git clone < repo’s HTTPS url>` (eg “git clone https://github.com/owos/Multilabeler.git")

To pull, you use: `git pull`

To add changes, you use: `git add .` to add all changes; and `git add <filename>` to make a specific file.

To make a commit, you use: `git commit -m “commit message” ` to commit all the changes added, and `git commit <file name> -m “commit message” ` to commit a specific file.

To make a branch, you use: `git checkout -b <new branchname>`; and `git check <branchname>` to switch between branches.

And finally, `git push` to push changes.

There’s more, but as I said, this is “a summary of what I learnt”.

After learning things in tech, one needs to practice; thus, what happened with the AWS course wouldn’t repeat itself (I didn’t have anywhere to practice actually), right? I had to force myself to take up the role of a Team Ninja on the team (a Team Ninja’s role is supposed to be for a backend engineer, see for yourself ). Initially, I just wanted to be a cool member of the team, just learning and implementing things on my end but knew I could do more than that for the team, and besides, It doesn’t hurt to try; we’re all here to learn. I’ll just keep tasking till I get it right, and I also have Google.

The cohort is still on as at the point of writing this, on the 11th week to be precise, and I’m happy I joined it; if you plan on learning ML and MLOPs, I suggest you prepare to attend the 8th cohort.

This is my story(this is my reality 🎵)on how I got a mastery of git as a Data Scientist; how did you learn to use git? Let’s talk in the comment section, on Twitter, or on LinkedIn.