What does it take to succeed in this dive?
Like studying programming languages, to succeed with Git/Github, you will need to spend a lot of time practicing your skills. The more bugs you run into, the better developer you become. While git and github are not technically ‘computer languages’, they are definitely going to cause you just as much grief as if you were studying a computer language haha. And unless you get good at them both, your coding development will be impeded greatly.
In order to get good, or even learn the basics, you will have to find good study materials, good teachers, and a good community to help you when you get stuck. We will cover all of these things shortly.
Most importantly, you will have to find the discipline to study and practice and improve regularly. If you don't study regularly, you won't make much progress, or worse, you'll make lots of progress and then forget what you've learned! With git and github, you MUST actively use the skills, or it’s not going to make much sense. Get git installed, setup a github account, and start playing around.
To help you, you will probably have to build something from scratch. Tutorials are great, but your skills really improve once you challenge yourself to build something on your own. Even if it’s just a simple html page, you can use that to give you the experience using git and github. You must get your hands dirty.
You see, most people only focus on watching tutorials or reading books. If you wish to become a great developer, you need to challenge yourself to build new, complicated projects and spend enough time with each so that you see regular progress and improve your skills.
Bottom line, if you want to become proficient with Git/Githu, do this:
1. Find a simple project you can build.
2. Spend at least 30 minutes a day learning new topics in Git/Github and set up your project for git version control from day one.
3. Be part of a community that will encourage you and help you when you get stuck. Hint: Join Break Diving!
Do these things regularly, and within 1 year, you can almost certainly be well on the road to becoming an expert in Git/Github. The question is: will you actually do these things? Ahh, that is the question. We hope you will!