Git 101

Git is a computer program that you interact with via the command line. It is used to track changes to your files over time. It is very important to understand that git and GitHub are two separate things. git is an open source change tracking program, GitHub is a company and an online service that allows you to collaborate on programming projects using git as the backbone of its service.

Configure git

It is crucial that you configure git with the email address that is associated with your GitHub account. If you are not sure, check, then double check.

What this command does is tell git that, when you track changes to your files, those changes should be associated with you.

# Lines in shell examples that start with a `#` mark are comments, by the way
# You shouldn't type them, they just give you information
# Replace <Your email> with... your email!
$ git config --global user.email "<Your email>"

# Replace <Your name> with... your name!
$ git config --global user.name "<Your name>"

You probably want to also tell git to use nano (preferred) or Atom as its default editor, otherwise it will open vim, an arcane command line text editor.

$ git config --global core.editor "nano"
# or
$ git config --global core.editor "atom --wait"