EDS 221 Day 1 PM

Version control


August 10th, 2026

Anyone can edit Wikipedia - how do you keep all those changes organized?

Version history tracks changes over time

Each contribution is individually recorded.

Version history tracks changes over time

Details about when, who, and what are linked to a set of changes.

Differences highlight exact changes

With version history, changes can be tracked to individual lines.

Version control lets us avoid this

From “R for Excel Users” by Julie Lowndes & Allison Horst

Pardon me, I want to write code, not encyclopedias

Bryan (2018) The American Statistician

git is the most widespread tool for version control of code.

Like Wikipedia’s revision history, it tracks when, who, and what, with line-by-line differences.

GitHub is the most widespread platform for hosting git repositories

It helps you collaborate, simplifying access and project management

Live coding demo