Intro to practical version control for scientists
Who here uses a version control system?
What is version control and what does it do for us?
- Reproducibility : logging of every step, complete project history
- Peace of mind : a robust backup system of changing files
- Collaboration : synchronize same files across multiple computers/people
Side benefits from Version Control
- no overwrites
- blame is evident
- nothing is ever los
- freedom to experiment
Can I only use this for code?
- Version control works for any file format (code, pdfs, docs, xls, jpg, etc.)
- ... but works best for text-based files (txt, R, Matlab, any other code)
Introducing git
We will be using git
There are many others (subversion, mercurial, bazaar, etc.)
How are we going to learn how to use git?
- Simple git commands are native in RStudio
- Tomorrow: More complex tasks (read: powerful but a little more complitacted)
- Tomorrow: How to collaborate using github
