Collaborating on GitHub

You cannot imagine the amount of patience you'd have to exercise while working on a project as a group if everyone had to wait for the other before they could code their part of the project, trust me, it would be quite tremendous!

Well, all thanks to GitHub, as a platform, that enables developers to work concurrently with each other regardless of the time zone or location in which your team members are.

This has all been made possible by GIT Collaboration.
Wondering how this can be possible, follow through the step by step guide below :

1. Create a new GitHub Repository

This shall have all the project files and history plus the 
README file which gives general information of what the 
project is about.
Ensure to keep the repository name simple and short as its 
easier to remember that way. Plus its best practice.
The repository should be created by one person(scrum-master) 
who can add the others as collaborators.

2. Clone the repository onto the local machine

Using the link to the repository, all collaborators added to 
the project should clone it onto their local machines.
A point to note is that everyone who has been added as a 
collaborator will now be working while on the **main branch** 
which and this can cause conflict in due course of the 
project.
One should always know the branch in which they are working, 
and to do this, in the terminal, run;
                     git branch -a
   (the current branch will appear in green, depending).

3. Create a your own terminal

In due course of the project, all collaborators have to get 
their deliverables done and to do this, you must have your 
space to write your code before it can be merged to the main 
file.
In the terminal, run;
         git checkout -b _[name of the branch]_
This will create a new 'workspace' for you as a collaborator 
to put your work.
And to ensure that you are on the right track, run the command 
in part 2 above to see your new terminal.

4. Track the changes done

First things first, as a collaborator, ensure that your work 
is up to date with that of others. To do this, in the 
terminal, run;
              git pull
This will instantly fetch and download the content from the 
remote repository and update the one on your local machine.
Thus implying that all the changes made earlier on will all be 
visible not only to you but to the team at large.
That will also enable all collaborators to see their 
particular branches.
One should note that as a team, its always wise to have a 
Development terminal where the collaborators can first push 
their work before it is finally published onto the PRODUCTION 
phase.
If that is done, run;
          - _git pull development_
  (this aligns all your work with that of others on the 
  development terminal)  
          - git add .
  ( this will add a change in the working directory to the 
  staging area preparing it for the commit upcoming)
          - git commit -m"[commit message]"
  (this shall capture the snapshot of the project's changes 
  that have been so far staged)
  For the commit message, one out to put in a very brief 
  description of what they have done just as best practice to 
  enable keeping of track. 
          - git push origin [name of branch]
  (this will push the current branch to the branch of the 
  matching name in the remote repository)
  In simpler terms, the work on your local machine in the 
  branch you've been working in will align with that on the 
  remote branch.

5. Change to the Development Branch

As earlier mentioned in our context, none of the 
collaborators is tempering with the main branch. That means 
that we all push our contributions to the development branch 
first before finally publishing on the production branch. 
To do this, run;
           git checkout [development]
'git checkout' will enable you to switch working tree files 
or switch branches.
As best practice, perform a 'git pull' to be able to get 
everyone's contribution and also have the updated version of 
their contribution.

6. Merge Your Contribution

In simpler terms, this is supposed to join two or more 
development histories together. 
To do this, run;
       git merge [name of the branch you are working in ] 

7. Push all Changes to the Development Branch

 This should be done after merging all the changes into the        
 development branch.
 Simply run;
        git push origin development
 This is done so that the work of all collaborators is in one 
 place and test before the scrum master pushes to the 
 production branch.

Please Note:
1.
In the scenario that an error message appears, git pull the branch in which you are working, a new message will still appear in the terminal because the snapshot on the local machine is not aligned with the one on the remote.
However, this can be solved by rebasing it.
Run the command;
git pull --rebase origin development
After the rebase has been made, everything will be updated.

2.
Always while working on group projects, ensure that as you work, you pull from both the development branch and your personal one. And always remember NEVER to push to the main/production branch unless you are told to do so.

Conclusion

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