Effective Computation in Physics

Chapter 16. Remote Version Control

Now that you have learned how to version files locally with Git, you are ready to revolutionize the way you collaborate on software, papers, data, and everything else. This chapter will cover the immense power of Git when it is combined with the broad reach of the Internet.

Chapter 15 described tasks related to the local working copy of your repository. However, the changes you make in this local copy aren’t backed up online automatically. Until you send those changes to the Internet, the changes you make are local changes. This chapter will discuss syncing your local working copy with remote copies online and on other computers on your network. In particular, this chapter will explain how to use Git and the Internet for:

• Backing up your code online

• Forking remote repositories to enable collaboration

• Managing files in a collaboration

• Merging simultaneous changes

• Downloading open source code to keep track of updates

First among these, this chapter will cover backing up code online.

Repository Hosting (github.com)

Repositories can be stored and accessed through repository hosting servers online. Many people store their source code repositories on common repository hosting services such as:

• Launchpad

• Bitbucket

• Google Code

• SourceForge

• GitHub

This chapter will use GitHub as an example. It provides tools for browsing, collaborating on, and documenting code. These include:

• Landing page support

• Wiki support

• Network graphs ...