When you store changes to your documents in Git, it’s called a “commit.” A commit is just a record of the most recent changes you made to a document. Your Documents folder in Windows, for example, would be a repository if you used Git to manage it (but don’t do that). Your documents form a repository (or repo), which is just a fancy term for your project folder. Instead, it stores changes to your documents only when you tell it to. Git doesn’t arbitrarily save versions of your documents at set intervals. In tech-speak, it’s called a distributed version control system (or distributed VCS). Git tracks changes to documents and makes it easier for multiple people to work on the same document remotely. Git is an open-source program created by Linus Torvalds, of Linux fame. What Are Git and GitHub? The informational section of a GitHub repository. Poke around on Google, and you find all kinds of crazy uses for GitHub.

For example, one person used Git and GitHub to write an instructional book, while another wrote a novel. GitHub never really left its coding roots, but some people still use it to store writing and other non-coding projects. That might sound like a crazy place to host your writing, but it’s not! After all, code is just lines and lines of text, like your article, story, or dissertation.Īround 2013, GitHub started encouraging people to create repositories for all kinds of information, not just code. If you’ve never heard of GitHub, it’s the world’s most popular destination to store and maintain open-source code. It’s also quick and simple to download your work to a second or third device. Git is an effective tool you can use to track document changes, plus you can upload to GitHub super-fast. I use Git and GitHub to store and access all of my writing.

Some people prefer cloud storage services (like Dropbox) or online editors (like Google Docs), while others use desktop applications (like Microsoft Word). There are many ways you can manage and store your writing projects.

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