This is the first homework assignment for CMSC320, Spring 2024 with Dr. Alam, on Git, Pandas, and SQL.
This is just basic practice using git.
Create a .txt file on your computer in an empty directory answering the question "Why are you interested in taking CMSC320?". Then, in the same empty directory, create an empty file called data.DAT. It is crucial the file is called only data.DAT.
Then, fork this directory by clicking fork in github. In your forked copy of the repository, go to 'Code', and copy the https clone key.
Open a command prompt on your computer, and go to some empty directory. Then, type 'git clone key' into the command line (where key is whatever https link github gave you).
Move the two files you created into the cloned directory (your downloaded fork).
Now you need to find a way using a standard git reference to upload your answers in the text file to your fork on github on the main branch, which should be public. However, using a .gitignore, your data.DAT file should not be on the main branch of your repository. You need to use a .gitignore for this task to receive full credit.
The documentation on git is available here (https://git-scm.com/docs). Please note you should be mostly interested in the add command, and instructions for making a .gitignore here (https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/getting-started-with-git/ignoring-files).
When you are ready to submit, turn in the link to your git project with your assignment. Please do so by submitting a PDF with the github link! This must work for credit!
There are plenty other details about git we will not discuss in this tutorial. This is simply a primer on the basic functionality of the tool. Primarily, merge conflicts and branch management can be severe problems with git repositories.
In general, repositories are collections of code and files, stored on a local device (your machine) and remote device (github servers, say). Each of these repositories can have multiple branches, or versions of the code. Sometimes, when merging versions of the code from the local branch to the remote branch, or between branches, there may be a conflict that git does not know how to resolve (conflicting versions of a file). These are 'merge conflicts', and can be read more about here (https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-pull-requests/addressing-merge-conflicts/resolving-a-merge-conflict-using-the-command-line).
General structure of git can be read more about here (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/version-control-with/9781449345037/ch04.html#:~:text=Git%20places%20only%20four%20types,Git's%20higher%20level%20data%20structures.&text=Each%20version%20of%20a%20file%20is%20represented%20as%20a%20blob.)