Handing in Homework Assignments

Repository content description

What to include

  • Code base

  • Project dependencies (if applicable)

  • (Optional) Additional project information: README, CONTRIBUTING, LICENSE etc.

Hint

Always start new repository from creating README and .gitignore files.

What to exclude

  • Virtual environment, typically venv or env folder

  • Byte compiled Python code (__pycache__)

  • IDE configurations, typically .vscode or .idea folder

  • Database files, like db.sqlite3

  • Other stuff not related to the assignment directly

Hint

Set up .gitignore to exclude all name patterns from appending to the stage area. Common content of this file may look like:

/venv/
/env/
__pycache__/

Repository initialization

  1. Create and activate virtual environment.

  2. Create common repository files:

    • README

    • .gitignore

    • requirements.txt (if applicable)

  3. (Optional) Create a code base draft. This can be an empty module like main.py or an empty Django project.

  4. Initialize a new repository using git init command.

  5. Set up .gitignore name patterns.

  6. Stage your changes.

  7. Commit your changes.

  8. Set up remote repository.

  9. Push changes from local branch to remote.

Initializing new Django project

Base Django project may be added to the repository with the first commit. Initialize Django project in current repository root to avoid directories nesting.

$ django-admin startproject <project_name> .

Important

Do not forget to create requirements.txt.

After that, you may proceed with “staging” and “commit” steps.

Sharing project dependencies

The requirements.txt file is a plain text file that lists all the Python packages required for a specific project. This file is used to specify dependencies in a version-controlled and easily shareable manner. It allows for a consistent environment across different team members’ local setups.

Where to place “requirements.txt” file

The requirements.txt file is generally placed in the root directory of the project.

Creating “requirements.txt” file

To generate file use pip freeze command and place its output to a file:

$ pip freeze > requirements.txt

This will create requirements.txt file. Its content may look like:

asgiref==3.6.0
Django==4.1.5
psycopg2==2.9.5
sqlparse==0.4.3
tzdata==2022.7

Installing dependencies from “requirements.txt” file

Another team member may easily install all the requirements for the project by using pip install command:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Dealing with home tasks (challenges)

  1. Create a new topic branch

  2. Switch to a topic branch

  3. Do the work and commit changes

Hint

You can create a new branch and immediately switch to it:

git checkout -b <new_branch>

Creating a pull request

  1. Make sure your working branch is up-to-date with the default one. You can pull changes for the default branch and rebase your feature branch onto it.

  2. Push feature branch to the remote repository. By default, the current active branch is pushed via git push command. You may need to set upstream branch if it isn’t yet.

    git push -u origin <remote_branch>

  3. Navigate to your remote repository homepage on GitHub and switch to Pull requests tab.

  4. Click New pull request button.

  5. Select your default branch as target and your feature branch as source.

  6. Click Create pull request button.

  7. Provide meaningful title and a brief description for your pull request.

  8. Submit pull request creation.

  9. (Optional) Select reviewer(s) in Reviewers section.

  10. Wait until your pull request is reviewed.

Set up reviewers

You may share a link to pull request to a reviewer directly, but it’s better to set reviewer(s) on the pull request’s page. Before you can select reviewers, you need to add them as project contributors.

Append collaborators

Reviews allow collaborators to comment on the changes proposed in pull requests, approve the changes, or request further changes before the pull request is merged. Repository administrators can require that pull requests are approved before being merged.

  1. Navigate to your repository homepage on GitHub and switch to Settings tab.

  2. Select Collaborators and teams menu item.

  3. Under Manage access section click Add people button.

  4. In modal window start typing GitHub username.

  5. Select a contributor from the dropdown menu.

This will send a contributing request to a specified user.

Merging changes

In case your pull request is approved - merge it to the trunk branch. Select one of the options available:

  • Create a merge commit

  • Rebase and merge

  • Squash and merge

Create a merge commit suits in most of the cases.

Making changes

In case your pull request is rejected or has comments - you may need to provide some fixes.

  1. Do the work in your local topic branch

  2. Push these changes to remote

  3. Re-request review (if applicable)

  4. Wait until review is done