You can think of GitHub as a cloud service that helps you store and manage your code. Because it also handles version control, it also helps you track and control changes to your code. But what exactly is Git and Version Control?

Version Control

If you have a big piece of software, it may not be safe to be working directly with the official copy of the code. This is especially true if you have multiple people or teams trying to change and test out new featurs of the code. Version control can help developers work safely with code through branching and merging.

Branching allows developers to duplicate part of the source code. This allows them to make changes to their version of the code without affection the original source code. It is only once they have completed their portion of the code that they ask to merge back into the main source code to make it an official part of the code

So what is GIT?

Now that you know the basics of version control, GIT is simply an open-source version control system. It's a distributed version control system that makes the codebase and history available on every developer's computer for easy merging and branching.

Then what is GitHub?

You can have version control and use the GIT control system without connecting the entire system to the cloud. GitHub allows for easy cloud-based git repository hosting. For many new devlopers, GitHub also provides an easier introduction to version control by providing a user interface. Many developers, especially those that have used GIT before GitHub live in the command line.

Sign Up!

Go to GitHub.com and sign-up for an account. You will need an account if you want to take advantage of version control. Technically, any public repository will allow you to look through and download the code base. Depending on the systme you're using, you may not be able to easily clone repositories into your IDE without an account.