Git and GitHub Vocabulary

Let's explore commonly used Git and GitHub Terminology.

source - https://github.com/sf-wdi-21/notes

Repo

In simple terms, a Repository (or repo) is a folder or directory that contains all the files and folders necessary for a project, as well as the history of changes made to those files over time. The repository can be stored locally on a developer's computer or remotely on a web-based platform like GitHub.

Clone

Clone refers to the process of creating a local copy of a remote repository on your computer. A Cloned repo will continue to synchronize with the target repository. Cloning can be done using the command line and requires the URL of the remote repository that you want to clone.

Let's say you want to clone React repository. The command for that would be -

git clone https://github.com/facebook/react.git

Commit and Push

a Commit is a saved change to a repository's codebase. When you make changes to your code locally, you can use the "git commit" command to save those changes to your local repository. whereas Push refers to the process of sending your changes from your local repository to the remote repository on GitHub.

Summing up, git commit saves repository changes locally but not on the remote repository.  Contrarily, Git push then updates your git commit changes and sends them to the remote repository.

Branch

a Branch is a separate version of a repository's code that can be modified independently of the main codebase. Think of it as a copy of the code that you can experiment with without affecting the main project. You can use branches to develop new features, fix bugs, or make other changes to your project, and then merge your changes back into the main branch when you're ready.

Local and Remote

You must have often come across this word as someone might have said to you "Push your changes to remote repo". What does that actually mean?

Local refers to the version of the repository that is stored on the developer's computer, while Remote refers to the version of the repository that is hosted on a web-based platform like GitHub. Developers can make changes to the code in their local repository and then push those changes to the remote repository on GitHub so that others can access and collaborate on the code. Similarly, developers can also pull changes made by others in the remote repository into their local repository to keep their code up-to-date.

source - http://jlord.us/git-it/challenges/remote_control.html

Fork

A Fork creates a completely independent copy of the Git repository. When you fork a repository, you create a new copy of the project under your account, which you can then modify and push changes to.

Origin & Upstream

Origin refers to the default remote repository that a local repository is synchronized with while Upstream refers to the original repository that a forked repository was created from.

In simple terms, To make a copy of the original repository into a user's account, Git provides you with an option called forking. Once forked, the original repository is referred to as upstream and the forked repository is referred to as the origin. Developers can sync their forked repository with the upstream repository to keep their code up-to-date with any changes made to the original repository.

source - https://devopscube.com/set-git-upstream-respository-branch/

Pull Request

It is a feature that allows developers to propose changes to a project hosted on GitHub. When a developer submits a pull request, the changes they have made are reviewed by other developers, and if approved, the changes are merged into the original repository.

Merge

a Merge refers to the process of combining changes from one branch into another branch. When a pull request is approved and merged, the changes made in the branch are integrated into the target branch, allowing multiple contributors to work on the same codebase simultaneously.