Install Git and Setup Github
It's likely that you already have Git and Github set up in your local development environment. We will use Git to version our code, and Github as both a server to host our repository and as a hosting platform to host our projects.
If you have not yet set up Git and Github, follow the links below to get these set up on your development environment.
Please note: Hosted development environments may connect to Github in a variety of ways. Please consult the documentation for your provider in order to properly connect your development environment to your Github account.
Installing Git
One of the easiest ways to install Git on your computer is to install the Github application. Here are links for the application on Windows and Mac:
It is recommended that if you are on a Windows or Mac machine and you have never set up Git before, you should start with the Github app. This app is useful to manage your code, and it also helps you set up your global Git preferences.
If you don't want to install the Github application, you may install Git directly using one of the downloads from the official Git website: http://git-scm.com/downloads.
Please note: You will need to have Git properly configured on the command line to complete all of the steps in this book. You may use the Github App to manage your commits to your repository, but your automated deployment tool (Grunt Build Control) will use Git from the command line, so it will need your authentication setup properly between your local Git installation and Github.
If you need to download Git directly and install it, you may wish to consult the "Setting Up Git" guide from Github.
Windows Users: If you are using CMDER for your terminal, then you may need to do a little extra setup to make Git work on the command line with your SSH Keys. This article covers that setup quite well, so you should probably read it.
Setting Up Github
You will need a Github account to use Github for the purposes of these projects. You may, of course, use another service for hosting your Git repositories, but this book will also leverage the Github Pages feature to deploy our application. It is probably essential to have a Github account to complete everything in this book.
Github has several great resources for learning how to use it and how to set it up. The trickiest aspect of setting up your Github account is adding your development computer's SSH keys to your Github account. This is covered in their guide: Generating SSH Keys.
In addition to setting up the basics, you may want to bookmark the Github Guides homepage as a destination for later. Github guides cover basic topics of using Github and Git, and they are very good learning resources.
Please Note: The Github guides that are linked above contain instructions for every operating system. Look for the platform links below the title of the page if it does not automatically select your platform.