What is GitHub?

GitHub has quickly become one of the most used platforms by developers and most technical teams worldwide.

If you work in a tech company, it's impossible that you have not encountered it.

If you're just starting out, however, this word might seem strange to you! 😉

Yet, it's quite simple, especially if you already know what Git is: GitHub is a project management platform based on Git.

Now that it's said, let's get into the details!

Table of Contents

1. What is GitHub? 🤔

2. Key Features of GitHub

3. Why Has GitHub Become So Popular? ✨

4. The Purpose of GitHub Actions and CI/CD 🔥

5. The Role of GitHub in Open-Source 🌍

6. GitHub Desktop: What is it?

7. GitHub Copilot: An Assistant for Developers? 🤖

8. Alternatives to GitHub

9. FAQ on GitHub

What is GitHub? 🤔

GitHub is a platform owned by Microsoft. It is based on Git: it is mainly used to host our Git-managed projects.

It allows you to:

• quickly manage your codes;
• externalize your projects to secure your information in case of theft or loss of a hard drive (allowing you to have a campfire with your computer: your data is protected on GitHub 😗);
• collaborate with other developers.

In addition to serving as a hosting platform for versioned projects with Git, it offers many very useful tools such as conflict tracking between multiple changes (the commits 🇺🇸), opening tickets to track bugs, and continuous integration (CI/CD).

In summary, GitHub is both a hosting service that allows you to store your projects and a collaborative platform that enables you to work with many developers around the world.

Key Features of GitHub

As we saw, GitHub is both a platform that allows you to store your projects and gives you the possibility to benefit from many tools.

But GitHub doesn't stop there! 😬

Here is a small list of the features offered by GitHub:

• Private or public repositories (repository 🇺🇸) - Your codes can thus be viewed by everyone (which is very practical when looking for a job) or be private (allowing you to happily burn your computer);
• Pull requests - These are requests for changes. They give you the possibility to request a team of developers to accept one of your changes on any of the repositories of your choice (provided they accept the changes, of course);
• Issues - You can also indicate any potential bugs you might encounter so that the team behind the project can resolve them more quickly;
• Documentations - Thanks to readme.md files (md for markdown).

Furthermore, collaboration is greatly simplified between teams! GitHub supports branches (see what a Git branch is) to work on features in parallel, the pull requests we just discussed, and change tracking.

All these features form a perfect cocktail for developers!

Why Has GitHub Become So Popular? ✨

If GitHub is today the most used platform by developers, it is no coincidence.

1. GitHub is a central point for the open-source community: millions of projects are hosted on GitHub and tens of millions of developers contribute together, which has gradually strengthened GitHub's weight in the developer world;
2. GitHub is very easy to use: the interface is intuitive and navigating through project files is like using your file explorer;
3. With its many tools like packages, actions, and developer discussions, a virtuous circle has been created to form a very positive bubble for developers.

Key Number 📌

In 2023, GitHub had over 100 million registered users and already hosted tens of millions of projects.

The Purpose of GitHub Actions and CI/CD 🔥

One of GitHub's most powerful features is called GitHub Actions. They allow you to automate actions based on what you are doing.

For example, they give the possibility to do what is called continuous integration (CI for continuous integration 🇺🇸) and continuous deployment (CD for continuous deployment 🇺🇸).

Continuous Integration (CI)

Continuous integration is a practice in which developers frequently integrate their changes into their project: the main idea is to add small changes often into the main code.

Each new change then triggers automatic tests to quickly detect errors or conflicts.

All this ensures that the code remains perfectly functional with frequent changes.

Continuous Deployment (CD)

Continuous deployment adds to the principle of continuous integration: while continuous integration suggests adding and testing changes daily, continuous deployment suggests deploying (i.e., putting online) changes daily.

We're talking about adding small changes every day to improve a project rather than making one big update every month.

For example, you modify your project. You immediately create a commit and then push the changes to GitHub.

Automatically, GitHub Actions will run tests to ensure your code works correctly. If everything is good, it can even deploy your changes to the application.

The Role of GitHub in Open-Source 🌍

GitHub quickly became an essential platform for developers who do open-source: it allows you to easily and quickly find millions of projects to contribute to, to add a brick to the edifice (to make the world better, as some say).

Many popular projects like React, Linux, and even Node.js are, for example, on GitHub and entirely depend on the platform.

GitHub Desktop: What is it?

In addition to GitHub, it's not uncommon to hear about GitHub Desktop.

It is software to install on your computer that allows you to easily use Git with the GitHub platform without needing to use the command line.

It's thus a kind of application that allows you to learn to use Git with GitHub without struggling with Git commands. Very practical for those who are getting started with Git and GitHub!

GitHub Copilot: An Assistant for Developers? 🤖

GitHub Copilot is one of the very new tools offered by GitHub.

It provides AI-based assistance to code faster. Launched in partnership with OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), GitHub Copilot acts like an assistant.

It's an auto-completion tool that allows you to create features more quickly by understanding the developer's intention to submit suggestions.

In other words: GitHub Copilot behaves somewhat like a co-pilot in an airplane – it's there to assist you, guide you, and help you code faster and more efficiently.

Alternatives to GitHub

Although GitHub is extremely popular, there are many alternatives.

For example, its two main competitors can be cited:

• GitLab - Offers very similar features to GitHub;
• Bitbucket - Also offers more advanced project management with integrations on third-party services like Jira and Trello.

FAQ on GitHub

Our learners ask us many questions about GitHub! Here's a list of the most frequently asked questions.

Is GitHub free?

Yes, GitHub offers free plans. If you want very specific options, GitHub also offers paid features, but most of the time, you won't need them.

Can I use GitHub without Git?

No, you are required to use Git to use GitHub.

How to learn to use Git? GitHub?

You can try diving into Git to start. It's important to understand how this tool works before using GitHub.

If you want to progress quickly, a dedicated training on Git and GitHub can help you!