7. Remotes and GitHub

Conclusion and next steps

Congratulations! You've taken a big step in your Git journey by learning about remote repositories and GitHub. With these skills, you're ready to start collaborating with others on real-world projects. Remember, Git is a powerful tool, but with great power comes great responsibility. Always communicate with your team, follow best practices, and think twice before rewriting public history.

In the next chapter, we'll wrap up this first part of the course and give a sneak peek of what's to come in Part II. But before that...

Quiz time!

Quiz yourself

1/10: What is a remote repository in Git?

A repository that is hosted on the Internet or network somewhere

A repository that is geographically distant from you

A repository that is difficult to access

A repository used only for remote work or working from home

2/10: What is the benefit of using a remote repository?

It allows you to collaborate with others on the same project

It serves as a backup of your project

It allows you to access your project from any machine

All of the above

3/10: What's the difference between cloning and forking a repository?

Cloning is for public repos, forking is for private repos

Cloning is for Git, forking is for GitHub

Cloning is temporary, forking is permanent

Cloning creates a local copy, forking creates a server-side copy under your account

They're just two fancy words that mean the same thing

4/10: What is the most common name for the primary remote repository?

master

main

upstream

origin

remote

5/10: What is GitHub?

A version control system

A web-based hosting service for Git repositories

A command in Git

An alternative to Git

A place where software developers stroke their egos

6/10: What does the git pull command do?

Uploads the local branch commits to the remote repository

Initializes a new remote repository

Downloads changes from the remote repository and merges them into the local branch

Lists all remote repositories

Pulls a prank on your team members in a totally harmless way by attributing their commits as yours

7/10: What does the command git push do?

Downloads changes from the remote repository

Initializes a new remote repository

Lists all remote repositories

Uploads local branch commits to the remote repository

Pushes your untested code to unsuspecting customers

8/10: What does git push --force do?

Deletes the remote branch and replaces it with the local branch

Pushes local changes to the remote, overwriting any conflicting changes on the remote

Merges remote changes into the local branch before pushing

Pushes changes to all remotes simultaneously

Forces your will upon the remote repository, bending it to your command

9/10: Why should you avoid rewriting history on a public repository?

It can cause conflicts for other collaborators who have based their work on the original history

It makes the repository's history less accurate and harder to understand

It can cause collaborators to lose their work if they had pulled the original history

All of the above

10/10: What's the best way to fix a mistake in a commit that's already been pushed to a public repository?

Use git revert to create a new commit that undoes the changes

Use git reset to remove the commit locally, then force push

Use git commit --amend to modify the commit, then force push

Delete the remote repository and create a new one without the mistake

Blame it on the intern and hope no one notices

Terrific! Let's wrap up this chapter and look ahead to what's coming next.

Next step

Course preview Gitopedia Blog

Roadmap

Introduction to version control

What is version control?

Why use version control?

Introduction to Git

How Git works

Git workflow example

Conclusion and next steps

Setting up Git

Installation

Command line and terminal

The git command

Configuring Git credentials

Configuring line endings treatment

Configuring default branch name

Conclusion and next steps

Recording changes to the repository

Initializing a repository

Creating work files

Recording changes

Checking the status of the repository

Conclusion and next steps

Resetting unwanted changes

Comparing the working tree with the repository

Discarding local changes

Discarding staged changes

Amending the last commit

Conclusion and next steps

Tagging and branching

Referencing commits