Where am I supposed to start with GitHub?

What the heck even is GitHub?

I joined the Tech twitter community at the start of June 2021 (@ZoCodes) and it seemed as though every third tweet mentioned GitHub.

Most tweets involved heavy debates around how soon #CodeNewbies should start to learn Git/GitHub and you can image how confused I was when I came to the realisation that Git was not just the lazy way of saying GitHub....

Don't even get me started on terminology like 'homebrew' - no it is not some fancy craft ale for Developers. At least, I don't think it is?

According to Devmountain

Git is a version control system that lets you manage and keep track of your source code history. GitHub is a cloud-based hosting service that lets you manage Git repositories. If you have open-source projects that use Git, then GitHub is designed to help you better manage them.

How do I get started on GitHub?

With a content marketing background, it took a good month for it to click that 'PR' means pull request and not press release. There I was, amazed that so many Dev's were having their press releases approved, thinking "who knew the coding community was so in to content creation and had so much news to share?".

I am aware that if you are wanting to land a job as a Frontend Dev, it is highly likely you will need to understand how to use GitHub. I am also aware that contributing to the Open Source is a great way to practice your coding skills, build a bit of a reputation for yourself and ultimately give back to the community - but where and how do i start?!

I followed GitHubs guide

• Create and use a repository
• Start and manage a new branch
• Make changes to a file and push them to GitHub as commits
• Open and merge a pull request

and was left with my weather app files, saved online for all to see and a cute little comment from myself... okay, so now what?

What does the Twitter community suggest?

There have been so many good threads suggesting steps for beginners.

In the main the suggestions are:

• Find a suitable beginner project, you can do this by filtering out issues with labels/tags
• Consider fixing documentation i.e spelling checks
• Read and understand contributing guidelines and work to get assigned - think you do this via comments?

The next steps are where I get lost.... With terminology such as - commit, pull, merge and mains? And goodness knows what I am supposed to be forking and cloning.

Maybe one day I will look back on these thoughts and giggle, but surely others are feeling the same way?

If you have any guides and/or resources to help a girl out - please do share in the comments below.

I'd also love to know if any readers have felt the same way (now or in the past). Please do share any funny misunderstandings you may have had - I can't be the only one to read 'pull request' out of context and think it relates to online dating...

Zoe :)