Minimum Setup for a GitHub Software Repository

Previous projects have had me using subversion with SmartSvn as a GUI.  I had a server setup on my home network but wanted an external server but never got around to setting one up.   For this project I decided to go with GitHub.  It is, after all, the home of much open source software, is easy to use, is free for public repositories (and cheap for private ones), and has both graphical and command line utilities for the client.

Once you have setup your repository on GitHub the following commands will add your project to the new repository:

• touch README.me git init
• git add README.md
• git commit -m "First commit"
• git remote add origin https://github.com/ThamesWill/Physical-Interface-Demo
• git push -u origin master

Obviously replacing my name and project (ThamesWill and Physical-Interface-Demo) with your name and project!

Then to update your repository you do the following

• git add *.*
• git commit -m 'Initial adds'
• git push -u origin master

You will be asked for your GitHub username and password.  Once the push is complete you will see your code in the repository.   Subsequent pushes will result in the updates being change tracked so you can see what code changed when something goes boom in the night after an upgrade.

There are a lot of other features of both the local client and the remote repositories but the above are a minimum that I use to manage 'The App'.