Challenge Overview
Challenge Overview
Hello Topcoders! This week is Computer Science Education Week and because of that, we are running our own Hour of Code - Topcoder Hour Of Code PLUS!
In Topcoder, we have 4 tracks
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Data science: Competitive Programming (Algorithm) & Marathon
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Design
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Development (Code)
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QA
Most of us only focus on one track. It's your time to share one hour to try a different new track, it might help you to open a new world!
This challenge is a fun challenge for non-Development members to learn how to use GitHub.
GitHub is the world's leading software development platform, it is mainly for version control but also for team collaboration. It's widely used in modern development, even for non-Coders. Trust me, it's worthy to spend one hour getting started with it.
Important Note:
This is a fun challenge. We will randomly choose 10 eligible members who submitted a valid submission as winners, each winner will receive $25.
If you never participated in a Development challenge, then you are eligible. We will check your challenge history in your Topcoder profile to see if you are eligible.
You will only need less than 1 hour to finish the requirement of this challenge, but the challenge will last 24 hours for the timezone concern.
Requirements for this challenge
1. Prerequisite: Sign up to GitHub (Required only if you don't have a GitHub account)
Here are the steps:
(1) Visit https://github.com/, click on the “Sign up” button on the top right corner.
(2) Enter your Username, Email address, and Password, then click on “Next: Select a plan”.
(3) You don’t have to actually select a plan, just check your email Inbox, you will receive a verification email from GitHub. Click on the “Verify email address” button in the email, then you are done!
Note clicking on the “Verify email address” button will bring you to a page to create a new repository. You can try to create a new repository and play with it, but it is not mandatory for this challenge.
Q/A Time!
Q: What is a repository?
A: A repository (usually abbreviated to "repo") is a location where all the files for a particular project are stored. Each project has its own repo, and you can access it with a unique URL.
2. Fork a repository
Here are the steps:
(1) I created a repository for this project, please visit https://github.com/billsedison/tc-hour-of-code-plus
(2) Click on the “Fork” button on the repository page, then wait for a few seconds. Once the fork is completed, you will be redirected to the forked repository page automatically. Then you are done!
Q/A Time!
Q: What is Fork?
A: "Fork" is when you create a new repository based on another repository that already exists. This is an amazing feature that vastly encourages the further development of programs and other repositories. If you find a repository on GitHub that you'd like to contribute to, you can fork the repository, make the changes you'd like, and release the revised project as a new repository. If the original repository that you forked gets updated, you can easily add those updates to your current fork.
3. Create a pull request
Here are the steps:
(1) Click on the “Create new file” button to create a new file on your fork repository. The file name should be your Topcoder handle.
(2) Write some content in the file, like “Topcoder Hour of Code PLUS is awesome. :)”. Any arbitrary content is ok.
(3) Scroll the page to the bottom and add some message of your edit, like “Created by <your-topcoder-handle>”, select “Commit directly to the master branch”.
(4) Then click on the “Commit new file” button to create the file, then you will see a file (named with your Topcoder handle) that exists in your fork repository.
(5) Click on the “New pull request” button, it will bring you to the page to open a pull request.
(5) Click on the “Create pull request” button to create the pull request, a new pull request from your fork repository to my repository will be created. You can see your pull request here https://github.com/billsedison/tc-hour-of-code-plus/pulls, you might also see the pull requests created by other participants.
Q/A Time!
Q: What is Pull request?
A: After you've forked a repository, made a great revision to the project, and want it to be recognized by the original developers - maybe even included in the official repository. You can do so by creating a pull request. The authors of the original repository can see your work, and then choose whether or not to accept it into the official project. Whenever you issue a pull request, GitHub provides a perfect medium for you and the main project's maintainer to communicate.
4. Create an issue
Here are the steps:
(1) Visit https://github.com/billsedison/tc-hour-of-code-plus/issues, click on the “New issue” button to create a new issue.
(2) The title of the issue should be your Topcoder handle, and write some comments. The comment content can be arbitrary. Note the comment supports Markdown syntax, you can learn more about Markdown syntax from GitHub Markdown Guides.
(3) Click on the “Submit new issue” to create an issue.
Then you are done all the requirements of this challenge!
Q/A Time!
Q: What is "Issue"?
A: Issues are a great way to keep track of tasks, enhancements, and bugs for your projects. They're kind of like email—except they can be shared and discussed with the rest of your team. Most software projects have a bug tracker of some kind. GitHub's tracker is called Issues, and has its own section in every repository.
Further steps
I hope you enjoyed learning GitHub. Don’t stop here after this fun challenge. Here are some resources for you to learn further.
(1) GitHub Guides: A GitHub official step by step guideline https://guides.github.com/
(2) Git CLI tool: Git provides a CLI tool so that you can manage your repositories with command-line tools. https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial
(3) A crash course video for beginners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWYqp7iY_Tc
(4) GitLab: An alternative of GitHub. https://gitlab.com/
(5) Bitbucket: Another alternative of GitHub: https://bitbucket.org/
Final Submission Guidelines
Important Note:
This is a fun challenge. We will randomly choose 10 eligible members who submitted a valid submission as winners, each winner will receive $25.
If you never participated in a Development challenge, then you are eligible. We will check your challenge history in your Topcoder profile to see if you are eligible.
You will only need less than 1 hour to finish the requirement of this challenge, but the challenge will last 24 hours for the timezone concern.
Submit a zip archive with a text file, the text file name should be your Topcoder handle, the content should include
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The link to your fork repo
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The link to the issue that you created
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The link to the pull request that you created.