Discussion 1: Git Basics

Discussion 1: Tuesday, May 26, 2026.

This exercise is designed to help you get familiar with using git and GitHub.

To complete this exercise, you need to install git on your computer, if you haven’t already. Follow this link to install git.

Submit your work on Gradescope.

Part 1: Git-It Challenge

For this part of the assignment, you will learn and practice git commands using the Git-It tutorial. We forked and made some minor changes to the program.

Download the zip file from the Assets section of our Releases page. Follow the installation instructions for your machine.

MacOS Installation

1. Download git-it-darwin-arm64.zip to your Downloads folder.
2. Follow this video on how to unzip and start the app.

Windows Installation

1. Download git-it-win32-ia32.zip.
2. Follow this video on how to unzip and start the app.
   • The command used in the video is xattr -cr Git-it-darwin-arm64/Git-it.app from the Downloads folder.

Your submissions

• Take a screenshot of the Git-It app showing your completion status and upload it to Gradescope.
• Paste the output of git log from your local hello-world project into Gradescope.
• Paste the output of git log from your local patchwork folder into Gradescope.

Part 2: Fork and Edit Our GitHub Repository

Follow these steps:

1. Use GitHub to fork our course’s code repository: https://github.com/rust4ds/ds210-sum26-code
2. Clone the fork you created to your computer using git clone.
3. Navigate to the directory of the repo on your computer and create a file called hello.md with this content:

# hello!
This is my first git file

4. Add, commit, and push the file:

   git add hello.md
   git commit -m "your commit message"
   git push
   

   Use a meaningful commit message.

5. Confirm that hello.md has been pushed to your fork on GitHub.

When you are done, submit the URL to your fork on GitHub to Gradescope.