Introduction

In this tutorial, we will learn how to use GitHub for collaborative development. GitHub is a platform that allows developers to work together on projects, share code, and track changes. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to create a repository, clone it to your local machine, make changes, and push those changes back to the repository.

You will learn how to:

• Create a new repository on GitHub
• Clone the repository to your local machine
• Make changes and commit them
• Push your changes to the GitHub repository
• Collaborate with others on the project

Prerequisites:

• Basic understanding of Git and GitHub
• Git installed on your local machine
• A GitHub account

Step-by-Step Guide

Creating a Repository

1. Log into your GitHub account.
2. Click on the '+' button on the top right corner and select 'New Repository'.
3. Enter a name for your repository, add a description (optional), and choose to make the repository public or private. Click 'Create Repository'.

Cloning the Repository

1. On your repository page, click on the 'Code' button and copy the URL.
2. Open your terminal/command prompt, navigate to the directory where you want to clone the repository.
3. Run git clone <copied URL>. This will clone the repository to your local machine.

Making Changes

1. Navigate into the cloned repository on your local machine using the terminal/command prompt.
2. Make changes to the files or add new files.
3. Run git status to see the changes you've made.
4. Run git add . to stage all changes, or git add <file-name> to stage specific files.
5. Run git commit -m "<your commit message>" to commit your changes.

Pushing Changes

1. Run git push origin main to push your changes to the main branch of your GitHub repository.

Code Examples

Let's add a simple README.md file to our repository.

1. Create a new file in your repository called README.md and add some text to it.

# My First Repository

This is my first repository on GitHub.

1. Now, let's add this file to our repository.

git add README.md
git commit -m "Added README.md"

1. Finally, let's push this change to our GitHub repository.

git push origin main

After running these commands, your README.md file will be visible on your GitHub repository.

Summary

In this tutorial, you learned how to:

• Create a new repository on GitHub
• Clone the repository to your local machine
• Make changes and commit them
• Push your changes to the GitHub repository

To continue your learning, you may want to explore more about branching, merging, and pull requests on GitHub.

Practice Exercises

Exercise 1: Create a new repository, clone it to your local machine, add a new file, commit it, and push it to GitHub.

Exercise 2: Add a collaborator to your repository, have them clone it, make changes, commit them, and push them to GitHub.

Solutions:

Exercise 1:

• Follow the steps in the 'Creating a Repository', 'Cloning the Repository', 'Making Changes', and 'Pushing Changes' sections of this tutorial.

Exercise 2:

• To add a collaborator, go to your repository on GitHub, click on 'Settings', then 'Manage access', and invite a friend by their GitHub username.
• They should then be able to clone the repository, make changes, commit them, and push them to GitHub following the steps in this tutorial.

Keep practicing these steps until you feel comfortable with them. You might also want to learn more about resolving merge conflicts, which can occur when multiple people are working on the same code.