GitHub keeps track of your ever-changing website

Whether you’re working solo or in a team of hundreds, get a GitHub repository

Have you ever decided to rework the style of the header, only to change your mind back the next day? It would take a while to undo every change, if you could even remember every tweak. Maybe you work with a partner on the other side of the country, and they accidentally rolled back a slew of changes you got from the client while they were asleep. If your team at work can’t agree on the best heading, and that masterpiece you thought of gets lost amidst the infighting, it’s time for a solution. GitHub’s powerful repository system solves all of these problems, and more, all in their free plan!

Everybody has their own space to work in

Each code repository in GitHub can hold any number of branches below the master files. Any changes made in these branches don’t affect the originals. This means that a team of developers has their private lab to experiment and make a mess. Everybody can debate until an agreement is reached without mangling the master files in the process. These repositories even let you have sub-branches under each branch. If all teammates want to have their own space to work, they can.

When the team is ready to make the changes official, they have to submit a pull request. The project admin gets to review all of the changes in one process. GitHub is even kind enough to point out conflicts between multiple pull requests. If you’re only working with one or two others, GitHub’s branches are still beneficial. You can all test everything you want in your own space before coming together for the final review.

GitHub doesn’t forget old editions

Even if you’re working by yourself, GitHub helps by keeping track of your changes. When you update your master file, you can find your old code in the History section. If you made a change in error, you can view the old version and see exactly how the file used to look. There’s no need to restore an older file and undo hours of work – you can just grab the lines necessary to undo one change. GitHub basically acts as your website insurance, saving you any number of billable hours if anything goes wrong.

And there’s more…

While these are the core benefits, there are tons more features that make GitHub an invaluable tool for any developer. Any teammate can add comments to the branches, which provides context and explanations for every change. Security is built in for paid plans, making it easy to restrict people’s access to only where they need to be, or keep out anybody that’s not supposed to be snooping around your files. Or, if you need some fresh ideas, you can find dozens of free repositories on numerous topics for you to browse.

Explore all of GitHub’s features, and check out all of their plans at GitHub.com.

Tags: development