Four Benefits of Using Remote Code Repos
As I was laying in bed and contemplating something someone said to me a few days ago. I decided to write about it because I myself have asked this question, in different forms, and I know there are others who have asked this question as well.
I am currently mentoring a student, her name is Leslie, and the other day she asked me.
Should I put the JavaScript I am writing in school, on GitHub?
To this I replied, “of course you should!”
See what I did there? Adding any little bit of code you write to GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, etc. will be so valuable to you in the long run, especially if you are new to the game. Below is a list of the top four benefits I believe using remote code repos are to your growth and development as a web developer.
1. Learning Version Control
Learning version control nowadays is something we all must be familiar with. Whether you apply for a company that uses one of the big three (GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab) or TFVC and SVN, at some point you are going to be required to have some type of familiarity with version control and remote repos.
Academia does not teach version control, at least the schools that I know of. Not a single student I ever spoke to said, “we learned about version control” or, “version control is part of the curriculum”. This is a huge problem with academia, counter this by learning it on your own.
Every time you commit code to a remote repo, you are learning how version control works. Keep committing, keep learning!
2. Storage
When I began creating web sites/pages 22 years ago, I had no clue what version control was. I was also 11 years old and had no allowance lol. I digress. Version control for me was saving files over and over with different names index.html , index1.html , index2.html and putting them on 3.5" floppy’s. That was the old school version of source control.
Being able to store your code in a remote repo is great especially if you have to go back to it and make changes, copy it to use elsewhere, or recover it if your local files get damaged.
3. Building Substance
Today, there are a lot of company’s out there that will not hire you without some type of code presence online, it is unfortunate, but it is true. Whether that be a portfolio or a repo on GitHub where they can see the quality of your code.
Your code might not be the greatest in the world, but at least it shows that you are putting your code out there for others to see, and that is the hardest step in overcoming imposter syndrome when it comes to code quality.
4. Frame of Reference
I was skeptical about using GitHub for personal code and projects until the co-founder of Detroit Labs, Nathan Hughes told me during a workshop that it is very valuable in doing so, they were right. I started using GitHub in 2014, my first fork was April 10th, 2014 and my first commit was June 25th, 2014.
I am not saying my code quality was crappy, but to see where I was and where I have gotten is amazing. Forking repos and adding small snippets of code to forking large open source projects and creating my own open source projects. It is always good to see your accomplishments, remote code repos perfect for just that 👍🏻.
Conclusion
I hope this helps you in determining how you choose to go about saving and storing code out in the real world. Trust me though, it will definitely pay off in the end.
