The Goat Path Git Lesson

This is the minimum viable git lesson for researchers also known as the "Goat Path Git." The Oxford definition of goat path is: A (narrow) path or track, especially on a hillside or mountain, such as is made by goats. Here we take a narrow path in describing git that is useful for researchers who need versioning in their day-to-day professional lives.

Why a goat path? Well a goat path can be the shortest (and possibly the safest) path to follow in a remote place you're not familiar with; this is exactly how researchers learning code often feel about versioning technologies. The beauty of a goat path is that something (quite possibly actual goats) has followed that specific path so many times it's actually cut a visible and easy to follow trail. If it wasn't safe, it's very likely the path wouldn't get cut in the first place, because those things wouldn't be able to retread their path over and over again.

In case you've never seen a goat path before: this is one.

If you don't follow the goat path as a beginner, bad things happen sometimes. This is so common with git that the popular comic XKCD has even commented on it.

Comic by XKCD

Please note: there has been no mention of coding above. That's on purpose; git can be used to version regular text (manuscripts, dissertations, theses, etc), data (though there are many, many other [probably better] ways to do this), as well as code! Versioning is great. And versioning is really the whole point here. Git just happens to be the tool we use (but there are many other options, go explore!).

---

The State of the Art Research Versioning

We've all had this happen before. Researchers do this file naming so they can version things. All. The. Time. There's a better way!

Comic by Jorge Cham

So let's set down some functional requirements for versioning needed by researchers even if they don't know how to code quite yet.

---

Functional Requirements

1. Versioning with (fairly) simple tools to track changes in documents, code, data, etc.

• Give researchers something useful that allows them to version things.
• Let them grow into using other aspects of the tool (git) to solve other versioning needs. These will naturally arise as researchers start to use the tool (git) over time. And there are few things in this world researchers are better at than...you know...researching how to fix a problem. They just need to know where to start!

This is a hammer that you can use to drive a nail (the task of interest) at nearly any skill level.

This is what git gives you out of the box. Each of those tools are probably very useful, but it's so confusing as to be useless until you know how to use each, and every, one of those attachments. We ain't using this hammer here. Because it's confusing. And confusing is worthless for beginners needing to get something done.

2. Researchers need a way to publish what they are working on, collaborate with others to improve code they use, and ultimately make it available to the entire world so that others can use it, build on it, repeat it, and many other things to increase human knowledge. Underline collaborate in your mind. Go on meow, underline it.

---

The Goat Path

Gitting Set up on a Computer (get it?)

Be sure that git is installed on the computer. Installation details found on Google.

1. Create a repository on GitHub
2. Copy URL for the repository
3. git clone URL in a directory on whatever computer we're using so we can work with the repo.
4. Now we're all set on the machine you're working on. From here on out it's a cycle.

The Goat Path Git Cycle

1. Do some things with the repository (e.g. change code, update the files inside, move things around, etc).
2. git status to assess changes to the repository.
3. git add filename stage changes for a commit. If you're 100% sure you like all the changes in a repo you can use git add --all (git add -A for short) to stage every change in the repo.
4. git status again. This will show you what you're getting ready to commit. This is super useful!
5. git commit -m "add a useful message for later here about your checkpoint commit" to finalize the changes as a commit. This is now a single checkpoint you can always get back to (on the computer you're working on only!).
6. git push to GitHub to save your commit out on the web where you can get at it later on some other computer. Also your collaborators can find it there too (and the entire world if it's public!).
7. Start the cycle over again with changing things in the repo (step 1 in the Goat Path Git Cycle).

Compendium of Git Functions Used

• git clone
• git status
• git add
• git commit
• git push

Frequently Asked Question

Where can I go to find more training for Git after these intro lessons?

Great question. If you're at the University of Arizona there are organizations that can help: Research Bazaar Arizona. There's also an more advanced git lesson in this organization's profile.

Frequently "Asked" Questions

I really don't like what you're doing here. If you don't teach researchers $X git function, they're not going to be able to do $"cool thing"/$"survive"/$"be amazing".

Research has been happening for hundreds of years before versioning tools. I think they'll be fine. I'm just trying to teach them something that'll make their life a bit easier.

You're playing with forces you can't possibly understand!

You're right. I'm a researcher; I do that every day.