So, what’s this project about? Well, I dove headfirst into the GTech µLearn GitHub Enablement Challenge and—because I like to make my life harder—decided to build a Book App from scratch. The twist? I forced myself to use Git and GitHub like a “real developer.” Branches, staging, pull requests, the whole nine yards. I basically wanted to stop being that person who claims they know Git but panics at the sight of a merge conflict.
What was I really fixing here? Honestly, it was my total lack of hands-on Git experience. I mean, I study Computer Science (BTech gang rise up), and everyone keeps yapping about how Git is “essential.” But using it for actual project management? That was new territory for me. My goal: build something that works, and actually use Git properly throughout.
So, how’d I go about it? Broke it up into bite-sized chunks because, let’s be real, trying to swallow the whole cake at once is a recipe for disaster. First, I got cozy with the basics—add, commit, branch, merge, pull request (the usual suspects). Then, I mapped out what this Book App was even supposed to do. Set up my repo, got my local dev environment rolling, and decided every feature gets its own branch (shoutout to add-books and delete-books branches, MVPs of the project). Committed early, committed often. Tried to keep messages clear but, hey, sometimes “fix stuff” is as descriptive as it gets at 2 a.m. Managed everything with pull requests, just to pretend I had a team and wasn’t yelling at myself in the comments. Oh, and I gave myself a 7-day deadline for dramatic tension.
Action plan? Looked something like this:
- Day 1–2: Set up repo, mess around with branching until something worked.
- Day 3–5: Churn out the main features—add, view, delete books. (Delete was weirdly satisfying.)
- Day 6: UI panic mode, aka “make it look less ugly and squash bugs.”
- Day 7: Pray. Review everything, merge, submit the final PR, and hope for the best.
Kept a checklist in Notion because if it’s not in Notion, did it even happen?
Success criteria? Simple-ish:
- Book App works. You can add and delete books without the thing catching on fire.
- Every feature has its own branch and readable commit history (well, mostly readable).
- Code isn’t a dumpster fire, and maybe there are comments.
- Pull request goes through without the repo melting down. When all that happened, and the app ran smoother than my morning coffee, I called it done.
So, how’d it actually go? Honestly? Way better than expected. I learned more in that week than the last two months of pretending to “study” Git. Sure, my first few commits were chaos, and I totally forgot to branch before coding once (never again), but I fixed it. Merge conflicts? Nailed it. Eventually.
Wins:
- Having an action plan kept me from spiraling.
- Branches made my life 100x easier.
- I can now handle merge conflicts without rage-quitting.
Could’ve gone smoother though:
- Maybe I shouldn’t have left UI design ‘til the literal last day. Rookie move.
- Forgot to write a README at first (cue facepalm). Added it later, don’t worry.
All in all, I survived, learned a ton, and now Git doesn’t terrify me. Well… not as much, anyway. It's all about the efforts anyway right?....well, I hope so....
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