Exploring Git — Version Control Workshop University of Ibadan.
Every great idea begins with that spark of curiosity, that moment of genius.
Where do you go from there? Do you look for more information, do you immediately start work on this idea or both.
Regardless, great ideas are usually larger than life, impossible by human standards and definitely foolhardy to try to complete solo, hence the need to work together with other individuals.
The Ingressive Campus Community University of Ibadan noticed this and decided to put together a version control workshop/class to teach students how to bring their great ideas to fruition through the power of collaboration. The event held on the 13th of October 2018 at the Kola Daisi Lecture Theater, Computer Science Department, University of Ibadan.
The event started with videos introducing Git and Github, followed by a few corny jokes from yours truly (stick around and you’ll hear a few ;)).
At 11:00 am, Biodun Chris; Auth0 ambassador, software developer, founder of KnowIt and also ex-software intern at Konga gave a presentation on the fundamentals of Github called “Github101”.
His presentation explained what version control was, the types of version control based on language, why version control (with vivid examples of how version control saved his neck a couple of times), how information was stored, etc. Before that presentation, I didn’t know storing code on a flash and then passing it around was considered a form of version control in the stone ages.
And while I knew that git was a distributed version control system, it didn’t occur to me that that meant my code was stored on a server somewhere (I wonder how that never crossed my mind though).
So while the presentation was primarily for beginners, it still remained relevant for experienced developers.
Interested in checking out his slides, click here.
Biodun also mentioned that Version Control Systems were not only for code but for any type of file; meaning engineers, designers, and artists could also make use of version control. This corrected the erroneous mindset most attendees had that version control was only for developers.
To further bring this point home, the second speaker, Oyeniyi Adeboye, a hardware developer, IEEE UISB Technical Coordinator and ex hardware intern at Grit Systems (an IOT company), gave a presentation on “Git commands to live by”.
The presentation was based on the speaker’s experience with git commands, encouraging us to know their functionality offhand and also how and when to use them. He also gave some practical tips on using said commands.
His slides can be found here.
By the way, one of my jokes: where would you commit more? In a relationship or in git? (do you git it?).
The first practical session was anchored by Olumide Falomo (popularly known as olucode), an ex dev-ops intern at Gokada.
During this session, terminal tools were installed on participants’ devices and some of the commands earlier discussed were put into practice. Participants were able to create staging areas, local repositories, add their files to the staging area and commit added changes.
One of the many created repositories can be found here: https://github.com/olucode/git-explore
At 1:15 pm just before the next presentation, we decided to take a break and play the pop quiz kahoot game where the winner went away with chocolates and stickers.Then there was food and drink to keep the teeth busy and refuel the brain.
The next presentation was by Github Campus Expert and ex design intern at CK-digital, Jegede Olamide Harry.
For this practical session, participants were asked to connect their devices to the network provided by the organizers of the event.
They were then given a walk-through on creating Github accounts, creating repositories and pushing files to these repositories.
His slides are available here.
While knowing version control is important, learning about opportunities of how to use it is importanter.
Biodun again took to the podium to discuss hacktoberfest (slides), a program to celebrate open source projects contributions to open source projects. Participants were told what it was about, how to be a part and also what they stood to gain from participating.
Olamide Harry also showed interested participants how to access the Github education pack with their student emails and Boye discussed IEEE UISB’S upcoming open-source project.
The event rounded off with another game of kahoot where the winner and the 1st runner up went home with cash prizes.
Want to hear another terrible joke, here goes: A pull a day keeps the conflicts away ;).
And with that, at 2:30 pm, we came to a successful end of the version control workshop.
