The Story Of Your Project: UW RSE Git Tutorial

The Story Of Your Project: UW RSE Git Tutorial

Hello there! 👋 I’m Matt Christie, a data engineer at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Land Use and Environment Lab (GLUE). It was a privilege and a pleasure to present on Git today, an invaluable and omnipresent tool for version control. I wanted to give as close to a comprehensive overview as I could in 90 minutes, starting from simple objects like files and folders and building up to how we use Git to manage our real-world projects.

While many sources cite code backups and collaboration as primary reasons to use the tool, one of the main things I find myself using it for is communication. With judicious use of commits, branches, and pull requests, I like that Git allows me to advertise and explain my project in bite-sized pieces that map clearly onto what I’d like others (and myself) to know about it. In an attempt to highlight this aspect of its use, I presented the tutorial as The Story of Your Project (posted on YouTube). Looking back, the tutorial ended up being more focused on the specific operations Git makes possible, though it’s my hope that at least some of this appreciation still shines through.

I’ve also used AI to generate companion tutorial materials from the video content that are hosted on my lab’s GitHub. The repository contains markdown files that largely follow the content of the video and provide concise explanations of the commands it covers. I’ve reviewed the materials manually and have made small updates for clarity and correctness.

Enjoy! 📖

Recording of Presentation

• The Story Of Your Project: UW RSE Git Tutorial Recording

See also

GitHub Repo: companion tutorial materials