Modern research involving data analysis increasingly uses programming to increase efficiency and allow for more effective use of data.As code becomes a more and more essential part of research activities, we need to treat it with the same care that we treat other research products. The first step towards more maintainable software development and data analysis is using version control on all research and analysis code. Git is a popular tool for tracking individual and collaborative development of code. 

This workshop introduces the basic concepts of Git version control. Whether you're new to version control or just need an explanation of Git and GitHub, this two hour tutorial will help you understand the concepts of distributed version control. Get to know basic Git concepts and GitHub workflows through step-by-step lessons. We'll even rewrite a bit of history, and touch on how to undo (almost) anything with Git. This is a class for users who are comfortable with a command-line interface.

Version control usually facilitates:

• easy backup
• easy retrieval of specific revisions
• documentation (who did what when and why?)
• documentation (how do I do ...?)
• easy synchronization (staying up-to-date, integrating changes between multiple developers/machines)
• finding the changes introducing regressions (AKA bugs) efficiently

Please bring your own laptop if possible and install Git previous to the workshop.