Let's Unpack This!

Posted In: Reflective posts

This week Dr. Pilsch taught us how to use GitHub like a professional. Whoop Whoop!! I learned branching, authoring pull requests, cloning, staging, pushing, and pulling. These GitHub actions can help manage complex projects involving multiple contributors and are useful for something as simple as managing a blog.

After reading remote forks and pull requests, I thought of Google Docs. Google Docs is a platform where you can create, edit, and collaborate with others on documents using your phone, tablet, or computer. In Google Docs, “Viewer “ is when the receiver can only view the document, which is similar to “Watch” for the GitHub repository. Next is “Editor,” which is most similar to “Fork,” where you can interact. Lastly, “Commentator” is most similar to “Star,” wherein the star likes a post and the commentator is commenting “I like your post”.

When I took the course CSCE 111 (Introduction to Computer Science Concepts and Programming) with Robert Lightfoot during my sophomore year of college, we used a modern open-source text editor called Atom. After further research, it turns out that Atom is developed by GitHub and is promoted as a “hackable text editor for the 21st century.” Atom is defined by making collaboration on code just as easy as coding alone, right from your editor!

Atom has incredible key features such as:

  • Easily extensible: Atom works across operating systems like OS X, Windows, or Linux
  • Built-in package manager: Search for and install new packages or create your own right from Atom
  • Smart autocompletion: Atom helps you write code fast with a smart and flexible autocomplete
  • Split windows/Mulitple panes: Split your Atom interface into multiple panes to compare and edit code across files
  • File system browser: Easily browse and open a single file, a whole project, or multiple projects in one window
  • Find and replace: Find, preview, and replace text as you type in a file or across all your projects

“GitHub for Atom creates new branches, stage and commit, push and pull, resolve merge conflicts, view pull request and more- all from within your editor. The GitHub package is already bundled with Atom, so you’re ready to go!” - atom.io

I remember Professor Lightfoot assigned a card game project for the class to work together with their group. Our first assignment was to create the structure/instructions of the made-up game we will make from our imagination. But the twist was we will code a randomly assigned group’s card game instructions instead of our own. After using Atom individually to complete the labs, it was time to use Atom to collaborate on code.

I had a great experience using Atom and I loved their color scheme. It gives me cozy, warm fireplace vibes on a snowy day. Very random, but I promise you immediately get a comfortable feeling when you look at the website. Speaking of Visual Studio Code, I am excited to dabble in it in the future. It looks very similar to Atom and maybe it is even better, we shall find out.