Collaborating with GitHub




Intro

GitHub allows for amazing collaboration to happen! For this weekend's homework, you will be asked to complete the task in pairs. For this morning’s exercise, you will work together in those pairs to get setup for collaboration to go smoothly.




jService

Using collaboration via GitHub, each group will create a new repo and collaborate to complete a project called jService.

Each person must make significant contributions (and commits!) to the functionality of this project.

The jService assignment can be found here




Exercise Goals:

  • Set up the repo
  • All members add something to the README.md

  • Make a functioning server.js file

    • Remember your npm modules etc...
  • Make sure everyone has a very basic server running via one member writing the server.js and sharing the file via GitHub/git work flow
  • You will have two branches to work with for the morning exercise. The master branch is 'production quality' code it should be bug and error free - only push functioning code here. You will also have a dev branch - members should be merging their code together on the dev branch - then checking that their code works together. If it does, push it to master if it doesn't work, fix the code and try again.



Setup




Make a plan/assign tasks

  • Read over the homework together once again so you can start to discuss who will do what and plan
  • To be sure everyone is getting practice pulling and pushing as you work, be sure to keep communication open on who is working on what task
  • Note: It is fine for the group to screenshare and work on one file simultaneously - feel free to create a way of working together that will help you get the deliverable complete. Just remember to take turns so you are each getting a chance to type, to add and commit and push, to create pull requests and to merge pull requests from feature branches to the dev branch.



Delegate the roles

  • Choose one member that will make the one GitHub repo - this person will be 'the repo owner' - They will also be the only person merging pull requests from Dev to Master

    • Other members will be known as 'collaborators'

  • The collaborators will clone this repo onto their local computer

    • Reminder: you will be working within the same repo, so the collaborators do not need to fork the repo - only clone!
  • Note: This is a simplified workflow that is appropriate for a homework/group unit project for SEI. In a job environment, you'll likely see much more complex workflows. That's ok! Choose the right tools for the job, don't over engineer for the task at hand and don't be like Kath and Dave from Portlandia: Get the Gear



THE OWNER: Create the GitHub Enterprise repo and add everyone else as collaborators

  • Create a new repository on GitHub Enterprise
  • Name the repo jService
  • Make sure to make the repo public
  • Check the Initialize this repository with a README checkbox
  • Create your new repo!
  • Go to the repo's settings tab (upper right next to insights, below the star button)
  • Choose Collaborators on left menu
  • Enter your GitHub Enterprise password
  • Ask your partner(s) for their GHE handle

  • Add them and they should be able to access the repo immediately! Give them the link to the repo

    • If not, GitHub Enterprise will send an email and they must respond in order to gain access to the repo
  • Remember to git clone onto your computer OUTSIDE of any other repos to get your own local version



THE COLLABORATOR(S): Clone the repository and make sure you can make changes

NOTE! If there is more than one collaborator (i.e. you're in a group of 3), have one person do these steps at a time and then move on to the next collaborator

  • Go to a location in your terminal that is OUTSIDE any other repos in preparation for cloning the owner's repo
  • Go to the repo the owner just created
  • Choose the green Clone or Download button
  • Copy the correct link to the clipboard
  • Back in terminal, clone the repo: git clone pasteurlhere
  • cd into the newly cloned repo
  • Open it up in your code editor
  • Add your name to the README.md and save it
  • Back in terminal, type git status - you should see your modified README.md ready for git add and git commit
  • Go ahead and git add and git commit

  • Push your changes up using git push origin master

    • NOTE This is the ONLY time you should push directly to master! From this point forward, you should only push to your feature branches or the dev branch, then merge to master when needed. But for now we just want to be sure you have the ability to push/pull
  • Check the repo on your browser and you should now see your changes to the README!



ALL MEMBERS: Create dev branch

  • In terminal, inside your new repo directory...

    • git checkout -b dev - you should get a message confirming you are now on branch dev
    • git pull origin master - you should pull the changes from the master branch, even though you are now on the dev branch to update your code to the working functional code
    • check via your code editor that you all have the updated README.md
  • Agree on who will write the server.js file



ONE MEMBER AS DECIDED ABOVE: Create the API server.js

  • touch server.js
  • npm init - be sure to finish the prompts before going to the next step
  • touch .gitignore

  • In your code editor, add the following to the .gitignore file:

    • node_modules
    • it is critical to do this BEFORE adding/creating node modules via npm install
  • npm install express

  • git status

    • you should see all your files (server.js, package.json, package-lock.json) available for git add and git commit. You SHOULD NOT see node_modules being added! If they are, double check your .gitignore file.

  • Write a very basic server.js

    • Your server should be able to res.send('Hello World') to a / route at localhost:3000
    • DO NOT try to add more modules, create more routes etc. in an effort to 'get ahead' on the hw right now - Morning Exercise is for helping make sure everyone can collaborate on git/github - new group work always starts a little slow. Be patient and make sure you get things right and squash the little bugs before they become big headaches!
    • git add
    • git commit
    • git push origin dev - this will send your changes to the dev branch
    • Make a pull request via GitHub Enterprise to merge these changes into the master branch
    • Choose another teammate to check your work and if it all looks good (no merge conflicts, expected files uploaded)
    • Teammate merges (via GitHub Enterprise)



ALL MEMBERS: Pull changes, install the needed npm packages, make sure the server is running

  • Everyone should be on the dev branch (git branch to confirm)
  • git pull origin master
  • Everyone should have the server.js file, .gitignore, and the package.json and package.lock files
  • Only the person who created the server and had it running should have node_modules
  • Other collaborators should npm install and THEN should get the node_modules that way
  • Everyone should now be able to run nodemon and have their localhost:3000 display Hello World



Workflow

  • Try to abide by the below workflow. You will make mistakes and that's ok - figure out how to move forward rather than to start over or do really hard to understand git commands we haven't covered. Keep practicing to get the work flow right! git/GitHub workflow



Commit Messages

  • Making informative commit messages can be challenging especially when you are tired/stressed/pressed for time. While you may remember what the message asdfjkl; meant and what you were working on - your collaborators won't.



Next Steps

  • Plan how you will tackle this project together
  • Remember this is just a weekend homework. Keep it simple but make it watertight and polish it! This assignment's main goal is to help you all practice collaborating on projects.



Resources