1. 851-0585-04L – Modeling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB
L – Modeling and Simulating Social Systems with MATLAB
Lecture 3 – Introducing GIT
Karsten Donnay and Stefano Balietti
Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation
© ETH Zürich |
© ETH Zürich |

2. Revision Control: What?
Revision Control: What?
Revision (or version) control systems are software aimed at managing changes to documents (text files).
Famous version control software:
TRADITIONAL: CVS, SVN;
MODERN: Bazaar, Mercurial, GIT.
Throughtout the whole course GIT will be:
your preciuous ally in developing your project code.
the default tool for the final submission of all the project files.

3.
Revision Control: Why?
Because human brain was not initially created for programming...

4.
Revision Control: Why?
Team Work
Betty
Karl
Kornelius

5. How to efficiently integrate our code ???
Revision Control: Why?
Team Work
How to efficiently integrate our code ???
Betty
Karl
Kornelius

6. How to efficiently integrate our code ???
Revision Control: Why?
Team Work
How to efficiently integrate our code ???
GIT provides automatic
tools to visualize diff., merging code, and track the history of the project!!
Betty
Karl
Kornelius

7. Revision Control: Why? Time Machine 1 3 4 6 Deadline for submission
Revision Control: Why?
Time Machine
Deadline for
submission
Weeks 1 3 4 6
coding
starts…
Initial
agent loop.
Super-cool
plot added.
Simulation
on network

8. Revision Control: Why? Time Machine 1 3 4 6 What to do now? breaks
Revision Control: Why?
Time Machine
Deadline for
submission
Weeks 1 3 4 6
coding
starts…
Initial
agent loop.
Super-cool
plot added.
Simulation
on network
What to do now?
breaks

9. Revision Control: Why? Time Machine 1 3 4 6 What to do now? breaks
Revision Control: Why?
Time Machine
Deadline for
submission
Weeks 1 3 4 6
coding
starts…
Initial
agent loop.
Super-cool
plot added.
Simulation
on network
What to do now?
breaks
GIT can save periodic snapshots of your code (commits)
All past commits are stored and can be easily reintegrated.

10. Revision Control: Why? Time Machine 1 3 4 6 What to do now? breaks
Revision Control: Why?
Time Machine
Recover
changes
Deadline for
submission
Weeks 1 3 4 6
Super-cool
plot is back
coding
starts…
Initial
agent loop.
Super-cool
plot added.
Super-cool
plot added.
Simulation
on network
What to do now?
breaks
GIT can save periodic snapshots of your code (commits)
All past commits are stored and can be easily reintegrated.

11.
Let’s Git Started
GIT is free, open source software.
Works from GUI and from terminal (command-line)
On the Lab machines you can launch it with:
GIT Bash (Windows)
git (Linux – command line only)

12.
Let’s Git Started
GIT is free, open source software.
Works from GUI and from terminal (command-line)
On the Lab machines you can launch it with:
GIT Bash (Windows)
git (Linux – command line only)
Change directory: cd
List files in a directory: ls
Create a new directory: mkdir
Terminal commands
to remember

13. Let’s Git Started Open a terminal or GIT Bash.
Let’s Git Started
Open a terminal or GIT Bash.
Set the language to English (if you like)
Browse to the directory with the exercise files.
Initialize your first GIT repository
export LANG=en_us
cd /path/to/your/files/
git init

14. Let’s Git Started Introduce yourself to GIT
Let’s Git Started
Introduce yourself to GIT
Tell GIT which files you would like to track for changes.
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.
git add file1 file2
git add .

15. Let’s Git Started Do your first commit
Let’s Git Started
Do your first commit
Do any modification to the content of the files.
Get the update of the status of the repository
git commit –m “This is my first commit”
git status

16. Let’s Git Started Visualize the differences in the terminal.
Let’s Git Started
Visualize the differences in the terminal.
Visualize the differences in a GUI client
Tell GIT to accept the changes and commit.
git diff
gitk ; git gui ; gitx (for MAC)
git add . ; git commit –m “Some changes”

17. Some hints how to use GIT for your code
Some hints how to use GIT for your code
Commit often.
Use appropriate commit messages.
Do not rename the file names manually (use git mv)
New files are not automatically indexed, must be added.
Careful with git add .
Rather choose the files: git add file1
Write a .gitignore file or use git ignore for files that you never want to commit (e.g. big datasets)

18. References Git Home Page: http://git-scm.com/
References
Git Home Page:
Git General Info:
Github Home Page:
GitX (a gui for OS X):
Git in 5 minutes:
Git Book