I went to a meetup about Github yesterday, and learned a lot more than I expected. The meetup was held at an old fully restored hotel in downtown Portland. It was interesting because the elevators were skinny, resembling a rectangle more than the usual square shape modern elevators have. Regardless, I crammed myself in with another programmer and we headed up to the third floor.
The meetup event organizer was Tech Academy and the host was from Code Oregon, they had part of the third floor reserved. As I was walking in, a cart full of pizza rolled right by me. I have to say, any meetup with pizza is infinitely better than a meetup without pizza. People were already starting to take their seats, and everyone seemed to be meeting each other. One thing I definitely need to improve on.
After, we all got our fill of pizza and soda the presenter was ready to start. A guy named Michael, started us off. We dove straight into Git and Github. Apparently, there is a difference between Git and Github, by the name I just assumed they were one in the same. However, Git is the actual version control software. Where as, Github is a “social media platform for code”.
Alright, so what is version control? Version control is the task of keeping a software system consisting of many versions and configurations well organized. Basically, if you have a file, and you upload that file using Git. Git will track the file, and report anytime changes are made to that file. Meaning you can work by yourself or with a team and be able to track the changes everyone makes.
Now the fun part is Github. With Github you can upload your projects, create a portfolio using markdown language (aka Readme), and make all your code visible to future employers or anyone else for that matter. Michael told a story about a kid who was going to these meetups and was actively using Github to help contribute to open source projects, and one day this kid got a phone call from a company out in Colorado. The company offered him a system admin position for $55k, and it was all thanks to his GitHub account. When a company cold calls you, that’s when you know you’re doing good.
Another thing that’s cool about Github, you can follow other coders. Let’s say your favorite language is Java, well you can find some google engineer who codes in Java, and look at his work. I’m sure you can reason why that would be extremely beneficial, but I’ll tell you anyways. First, it allows you to see quality code from working software engineers or developers. Second, it’s free. You’re allowed to pull down the code from Github, and mess around with it.
The technical side of Github, I’m still learning myself. When I start at Epicodus, here in 10 days. I’ll be diving really deep into using Git through the terminal or command line, but for now I’ll probably stick to the Github desktop client. If you’re interested in messing around with Github and posting your own projects or playing around with the version control software, follow this link to download the desktop client, https://desktop.github.com/.
Anyways, it was a fun meetup with a lot of interesting people and topics. I even got in front of all of them for a brief minute to talk about my greatest weakness. Overall, I would say that I’m a fan of Tech Academy and Code Oregon, and I’ll definitely be back. If you’re in Portland, I would check them out at https://www.meetup.com/CodeOregon/. Thanks, for reading.