GitHub

What is GitHub?

GitHub is an online hosting service. People can host and manage repositories here. Developers can share work, collaborate and interact with each other. In a way, GitHub is like a social media platform for developers, connecting them across the world allowing for easily working together! These collaborative features are the key reason for GitHub’s popularity, leading it to be one of the most popular developing platforms today!

Key GitHub Terms

• Repository - This is where projects are stored. Much like a folder on a desktop, the repository holds a range of different files that are a part of a project. It can be stored on GitHub or your desktop. Repositories are flexible, you can edit code, images, update information, add files and much more within it. Multiple developers can be a part of one repository, showing GitHub’s compatibility with allowing collaboration among developers.
• Commit - This is committing to a change in your code based on what it looks like at that particular time, similar to saving a file. GitHub stored a record of all commits and encourages a note to be made each time, so developers can look back to each change and see why this was.
• Push - Pushing moves changes made to your project to your GitHub reposity, allowing yourself and others to access it on the website. Pushing changes adds them to your actual project, like a postman delivering something to a location.

HTML and CSS

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, it is what the majority of websites are made up of on the internet. Markdown is a text-to-HTML tool. In a way, it acts like a translator, translating regular letters and symbols to HTML, allowing them to be used in coding. Essentially, it is a user-friendly way of creating HTML without needing to fully understand how to write using it. For designers, markdown is a great tool for time effectiveness and ensuring that they don’t make the Eros that would be much more common if manually producing HTML.

HTML tags are simple, such as <p> symbolising a paragraph opening and </p> symbolising a paragraph closing.

Key shortcuts in markdown

• = A first level header.

• = A second level header.

• = A third level header.

• • • • = These can all create lists.
• 1., 2, 3. etc = Numbered lists.
• Text = Adds a link to text.

These shortcuts are a simple yet integral part of using markdown as these are the fundamentals to build any site or application. For example, every webpage will have at least one header, as hierarchy is important for presenting information. Using markup allows designers to test their hierarchy and structure before getting into the design and aesthetics of a site. Today most sites are complex and have multiple headers, lists, external links and more, which is why it is so important for aa designer to understand how to implement these.

CSS can be seen as the design element of HTML.

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