Details - Blog

Using GitHub

I have a working version of my blog now, even though I don't have pictures and other things completely worked out. But I wanted to start documenting the things I am already doing, to ensure I don't forget to write about them. So this is going to be kind of like a Wiki, I don't know. Maybe I will start adding links to other blog entries, so they will act like a Wiki of sorts.

I have so many ideas in my head, so many things I want to try, that it's hard to focus and get anything accomplished unless I put the brakes on myself. So, let's talk about GitHub. GitHub is an online repository that is completely free to use (I am sure there are paid upgrades). I have used Visual Source Safe (VSS) and Team Foundation Server in the past, so I am familiar with them. All you need is a GitHub account (if you are creating your own repositories) and to install Git on your computer.

Git was written to work as a console app, there are several popular versions such as PowerShell and Bash, I really don't know Bash that well but I keep reading about it. So I started with Visual Studio Code and opened a terminal window, and I could use Git by just typing "git init" and it would create a repository. I should say at this point I created a Projects folder on my PC (NOT linked to One Drive) and have a separate folder for each project. I will probably have to arrange them more as I get going. So my Blog app is under "Blog" in it's own folder. Visual Studio 2022 Community, which is the free version of Visual Studio I am now using, was written to integrate with Git, and it is very easy to use. I should expand more on using Git within Visual Studio.

Every time you are at a stopping point, you can "Stage" your code, then you can "Commit" your code, then finally you can "Push" your code to the remote repository. Each of these has a unique identifier, so you can read your earlier code and even roll back to an earlier version. Finally, you can "Branch" to a separate coding effort that is not part of the "Main" branch, so other coders can use the stable official version. Some of this may sound too much like inside baseball, but I want to capture my progress so I can refer to it later if I forget how I did something.

This YouTube video covers in more detail how to use GitHub with Visual Studio 2022: Github + Visual Studio 2022: Basic Workflow For Beginners

Sunday, 22 June 2025 17:20