assignment.md

Chapter 3 Assignment

From this point onwards, you will be managing your assignments with git and submitting them through GitHub. The aim of this assignment is to get you familiarized with a common version control workflow.

Getting Started

Make sure you've forked this repository under your own GitHub account, and then clone your own repository to your computer. You will push the changes you've made to this document as submission to GitHub.

If the version control concepts or git commands are still confusing to you, consider re-reading and following the online notes, or check out an interactive tutorial like Learn Git Branching.

The Assignment:

0. Create a branch in this assignment repository named submission, then list all the branches you have (Hint: look at the Branch chapter of notes on how branches work, how to create new ones, and check existing branches):

   # git command used and new list of branches

1. List the current remote name and hyperlink destination of this assignment repository (Hint: if you are not sure, add --help after your command to check remotes.).

   # your git command and output here

2. Add a second remote destination named upstream to your assignment repository, upstream is a common name used for the repository that people have forked from, in our case, the upstream will be at https://github.com/WCM-datascibasics/version_control_assignment. List the new list of remotes after you've added the new remote.

   # list the new list of remotes here

3. Save your modifications to this file so far and create a commit indicating you've answered the first 2 questions. Then try pushing the changes to the upstream destination on GitHub. What happens? Explain in your own words why does this happen? What are the benefits of having this upstream remote added when working collaboratively (Hint: read git command outputs!)?

   Your answer here

4. Now clone the repository for the class website, and in the class website repository:

   • a. Explore the version history by visualizing it as a graph (remember the dog meme?).

     # git command and output here

   • b. Who was the last person to modify README.md? (Hint: use git log with an argument)

     # git command and output here

   • c. What was the commit message associated with the last modification to the -Week 2 line of index.md file? (Hint: use git blame and git show, check out their help pages if you are not sure what to do)

5. In the course website repository (or another repository you want to clone from GitHub), modify one of its existing files, do not git add or git commit yet:

   • a. What happens when you do git stash, be specific about what happens to your uncommitted changes after stash.?

     Answer here

   • b. What do you see when you run git log --all --oneline after stashing your modification?

     Answer here

   • c. Look up what git stash drop and git stash pop does, either Google or use --help. Run git stash drop to undo what you did with stash, in what scenario might stash-ing, pop-ing, and drop-ing be useful?

     Answer here

6. One common mistake when learning git is to commit large files that should not be managed by git or adding sensitive information like security keypairs for Amazon Cloud Services. Navigate back to your assignment repository and try adding a random text file to the repository (use touch), making some modifications and commits to your repository, and deleting that file with rm. But deleting with rm will not delete that file's recorded git history, therefore we need to do a little more. You may want to look at this)

   Perform the commits and deletion, this question will be graded based on your commit history on GitHub. I should see commits for when you added your file and made modifications, and I should see a commit for when you deleted the files.

7. Like many command line tools, git provides a configuration file (or dotfile) called ~/.gitconfig. Create an alias in ~/.gitconfig so that when you run git graph, you get the output of git log --all --graph --decorate --oneline. You can do this by directly modifying the ~/.gitconfig file or by using the git command line functionality.

   # Your alias entry or git config command here

   This is also a good opportunity to turn your dotfiles folder into a version controlled repo (Use git init in your dotfiles folder), make it private if you have sensitive ssh configurations there (IP Addresses), else feel free to make it public. (This is for your own benefit, not part of the assignment grading)

8. You can define global ignore patterns in ~/.gitignore_global after running git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global. Do this, and set up your global gitignore file to ignore OS-specific or editor-specific temporary files, like .DS_Store, or .vscode. Feel free to Google around for common gitignore entries for Python projects or other projects of your interest.

   # Your .gitignore_global entries here

9. Push the submission branch of your repository to your GitHub remote. Your remote main/master branch should be unchanged since your fork. Now go to your GitHub repository settings and add axiezai as a collaborator. Now create a pull request to merge the changes from submission to main/master, assign your TA axiezai as a reviewer. You will receive feedback and grades through the pull request review.