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🕰️ Introduction to Git and GitHub

Next: Install Git ->

🎯 Outcome

Understand what version control is, what Git does locally, and what GitHub adds on top.

✅ You Should Be Able To

  • explain the difference between Git and GitHub
  • describe why version control matters even on small projects
  • identify .git as the local history database for a repository

🧠 Key Ideas

  • Git is a distributed version control system that runs on your machine.
  • GitHub is a platform that hosts Git repositories and adds collaboration features.
  • A commit is a saved project snapshot plus metadata such as author, timestamp, and message.
  • The .git directory stores repository history, references, and configuration for the project.

⚖️ Git vs GitHub

Git and GitHub are related, but they are not the same tool.

  • Git tracks file changes locally. You can use it without an internet connection.
  • GitHub hosts Git repositories remotely so people can share code, review changes, and open pull requests.

💡 Why Version Control Matters

Without version control, teams often create folders such as project-final, project-final-v2, and project-final-really-final. That approach loses history and makes collaboration hard.

Git solves that problem by recording a structured history of commits. Each commit points to a project snapshot, so you can inspect what changed, when it changed, and who made the change.

🛠️ Preview Of The Workflow

Throughout this course, you will learn a basic Git workflow:

  1. change files in the working directory
  2. stage selected changes with git add
  3. create a commit with git commit
  4. push the commit to GitHub

🧪 Verify

In the next module you will install Git and confirm that your shell can run it:

git --version

🏁 Success Criteria

  • You can explain Git in one sentence without mentioning GitHub.
  • You can explain GitHub in one sentence without calling it "Git".
  • You know that repository history lives in .git.
Next: Install Git ->