uconn-maglab / maglab-main

The central public repository for the organization.

maglab-main

The central public repository for the lab.

Usage

GitHub is great for:

• Sharing your code (e.g., R scripts, PsychoPy experiments)
• Asking questions about other people's code
• Asking for help with your own code
• Documenting your code
• Keeping all of your scripts in one safe place for future reference
• Keeping track of changes to your code, and undoing changes that led to problems

This Organization is a way for us to keep a bunch of repositories in one place, specifically organized around our lab, so that we can help each other—and ourselves—out.

New to Git/GitHub?

First, you will want to install git.

Then, you'll probably want to learn the basics of Git and GitHub.

If you have questions, Rachael should be able to help (others with git experience, please feel free to add your names too!).

Organization organization

You have a few options for posting your own code:

• You could push it to this repository.
• You could make a repository for your own code (use the "+" button in the top toolbar next to your icon, or go to the Organization's main page and hit "New Repository").
• You could make a separate repository for every project/topic/whatever. The organization has unlimited free public repositories.

Asking for help

Issues are a good way to ask for help or suggest improvements (even if you don't know how they would be implemented). You would probably open an issue on the repository where the code in question is hosted. You can link to the file and @mention people if you want.

Offering help

The simplest way to offer help is to leave a comment on an issue. But sometimes, you'll want to edit code directly. For that, you will want to make a pull request.

A pull request is when you make changes to files in a repository and propose to the repository's owner, so that they can "pull" them in if they approve of the changes.

First, you'll need to fork the repository by clicking the "Fork" button in the upper right corner. Then, clone it to your computer with

git clone https://github.com/uconn-maglab/[repo-name].git

Make a new branch for your changes: (assume "update" is the new branch name-- but you can call it whatever you want)

git branch update
git checkout update

Make your changes, commit and push them to your branch, and open a pull request (find the "Pull Requests" tab) in the original repository, explaining what you did. If the repository owner is happy with the changes, they will merge them into their repo. Otherwise, they might ask for more clarification or ask you to expand on it (of course, whether or not you do so is your choice).

Things to keep in mind

Everything you post here is public. If you specifically want your code private, use the maglab-private repository. But if it's not confidential, sharing it publicly can be cool and help a lot of people out. Just remember that this public nature has several important implications:

1. Do not post anything that you do not want the world to see.
2. You will want to license your work so that others may adapt it on your terms (this is much less scary than it sounds--see below for more detail).
3. Respect others' intellectual property; do not publish anything that you did not create unless you know you have the right to do so.

Write permissions

You technically have the right to write (push) to any repository in the organization. Please be decent about this and don't write to a repo that is entirely someone else's code without their permission. However, if you have a fork, you can totally write to that, and submit a pull request if you think it should be incorporated into the original.

About licensing and copyright

By default, everything you create is copyrighted to you, with all rights reserved. This means that no one can (legally) use, modify, or distribute it without your express permission. That's not really ideal for collaboration.

You have the right (and are encouraged) to license your work, which is a way of making explicit what you permit--or do not permit--others to do with your work. I know it sounds like a hassle, but it's a lot simpler than you'd expect. You can find accessible information about licenses on choosealicense.com.

To make things even simpler, it might be best if we have a standard license that everyone is encouraged to use (but you will always have the right to choose not to). That way, everyone is on the same page about what is and is not okay to do, and you can know that your license is compatible with any scripts, etc. that you are using. I tentatively propose the MIT license, which is summarized as:

1. You can use, modify, and distribute the work as long as the original copyright holder is properly acknowledged.
2. No warranty is provided—people can't get mad if your code breaks something of theirs (or, they can technically get mad, but that's all).

Regardless of what license you choose, please be cognizant of others' choices (that is, don't incorporate a GPL-licensed file into an MIT-licensed project). A license is good for both the copyright holder and the user, because it creates a clear set of terms so that there will be no legal surprises.