7 Essential GitHub Features Every Developer Should Know

Considering today’s world, where new technological advances are constantly emerging in the field of software development, GitHub seems to represent one of the most successful examples of its kind. This platform has by far enhanced the way developers do their work and how they share and develop software. It is very important, no matter whether you are a professional programmer or a beginner, to understand and apply the options GitHub offers, as this will greatly boost your effectiveness.

In this full guide, let’s take a look at seven key things on GitHub that every developer should know about. Going from GitHub Copilot, which is state-of-the art in AI assistance, to some tools that you might not be aware of, like the GitHub Developer Environment, we will cover the tools that can make your development even better.

Table of Contents:

• • What is GitHub Copilot?
  • 7 Most Important GitHub Features For Developers
  • Conclusion
  • FAQs

What is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered coding assistant that no doubt can be regarded as the next step in the evolution of development tools that might redefine the approach to code generation. GitHub Copilot is not intended to replace control-alt-delete coding but, rather, is called to be your intelligent coding partner that types whole lines or even complete functions within your editor. Using machine learning, Copilot recognizes the areas and needs of your coding and then offers you suggestions on how to code better and faster.

The use of GitHub Copilot has had a large effect on the productivity of developers. GitHub’s own research has shown that developers using Copilot have pointed out that their productivity improves as they work more with the tool.

As a result of performing typical coding jobs and providing thoughtful advice, Copilot can enable developers to concentrate on problem-solving and innovative development. To learn more about harnessing the power of GitHub Copilot, consider taking a GitHub Copilot training course. For upskilling your Career, you can go enroll for DevOps Certification course

7 Most Important GitHub Features For Developers

GitHub Developer Environment

The integrated developer environment on GitHub is one of the features that is not as prominent as it should be. This is a strong feature of this tool since it enables one to work on Visual Studio Code in the browser without having to switch between the GitHub web-based platform and the IDE. To use this feature, one only needs to press the period key while in a GitHub repository or go to GitHub directly. This action launches a completely native version of VS Code in the browser with all the features.

 The GitHub Developer Environment is handy in scenarios such as quick edits, doing code reviews, and when developing on a machine where your development tools are not installed. Developers love it because it eliminates issues caused by a single tool coming with the strength of another—the flexibility of using their IDE and DVCS in harmony.

Git Hub Command Line Interface

If you are a developer who loves the use of terminal shortcuts, then joy has finally arrived in your life, sort of with the GitHub CLI. Introducing the Hub CLI tool. This is the official tool to interact with GitHub using the terminal interface and make fetch, pull requests, issues, and more without leaving the terminal.

GitHub CLI helps to create and clone repositories, create views and operate with pull requests, work with issues, or run GitHub Actions workflows in the CLI environment. This integration is very helpful for your working process because it saves you from switching windows frequently and lets you remain in touch with your code.

GitHub Student Developer Pack

The GitHub Student Developer Pack is therefore useful for students who are new to coding. These services include free and affordable developer tools that give students an opportunity to work with top-of-the range tools without incurring financial burdens.

Some of the offers provided in the Student Developer Pack are from a number of partners focusing on different aspects of software development.

For instance, students can get:

      A free license to GitHub Pro while learning

• The existing accounts of cloud platforms such as Digitalocean and Microsoft Azure
• Free domains from Name.com
• Premium courses and certification on platforms such as DataCamp and Frontend Masters
• Perhaps one of the bonuses is that Canva gives students a one-year opportunity to use their premium account for free.

A Special Repository

Your GitHub account is usually the first that other developers, people you may want to collaborate on a project with, or even an employer may come across when they search for you on the site. The landing special repository on GitHub enables a user to create a personalized, well-interpreted web page that leaves a first impression.

To set up such a special repository, just create a new repository with a name identical to your GitHub username. GitHub will know that this is your profile repository, and whatever you put in here will be reflected on your GitHub profile.

In this repository, you can add:

 A README. An updated copy of the CV in an MD file containing personal details about yourself

• Hypertext links to your projects and contributions
• Identity or skill credentials in the form of badges
• Blo.gs and ghwifi for your latest points of interest or blog posts, and your GitHub statistics for an instant update.

File Finder

While using large repositories, searching for a specific file may take a lot of time. However, with the help of File Finder on GitHub, it is not very difficult to search for files inside the repository.

The file finder comes with a way of operation whereby, when you are in a repository, you press the ‘t’ key. This action brings up a search interface bar where you can enter the file name you are searching for. This is one of the amazing features of the File Finder; it employs fuzzy search and can return the file with which you are looking, despite the fact that it may not be remembered exactly.

This feature is particularly useful when:

Reviewing large pull requests

• Exploring unfamiliar repositories
• It enables one to easily locate particular files from the projects that one has developed.
• Having established the workings of the File Finder into your fingers, you will be finding your way even to the most labyrinth and complicated files in traversing your development stages.

GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages is one of the tools that provides the opportunity to host web sites from GitHub repositories. It is extremely useful for project documentation, personal blogging, or even a simple business website.

With GitHub Pages, you can:

• Store files, documents, HTML, images, videos, music, photographs, and help host static websites for free.
• Use custom domains.
• Ancestors, when you make changes, you want to push to automatically build and deploy this site.
• For project sites, you can directly configure Github pages in repository settings. This enables you to host your project documentation, or even a demo site, so you can easily present your work to the world.

GitHub Copilot

And thus, we’ve finally come back to GitHub Copilot, the powerful AI-based tool that is revolutionizing the lives of developers. Earlier, it was stated that Copilot offers code suggestions right in the editor and uses machine learning to do this to allow you to write code more effortlessly.

Some key benefits of using GitHub Copilot include:

• There are not that many directly exciting advantages with regards to general interactivity and increased code writing speed due to AI’s capability to suggest code.
• Less of the time is spent on the creation of the boilerplate and repetitive code.
• Being able to learn new programming languages and frameworks better
• Examining other possibilities of performing certain function or an algorithm

Conclusion

These seven GitHub features represent just a fraction of what the platform has to offer, but mastering them can significantly enhance your development workflow and productivity. From the AI-powered assistance of GitHub Copilot to the often-overlooked gems, each feature brings its own set of benefits to your development process.

If you’re new to GitHub and want to learn the basics, check out this guide on How To Use GitHub. As you continue your journey as a developer, we encourage you to explore these features and integrate them into your workflow.

FAQs

What are the free features of GitHub?

GitHub’s free features include unlimited public and private repositories, GitHub Pages, issue tracking, pull requests, and basic collaboration tools.

What is the main purpose of GitHub?

GitHub’s main purpose is to provide version control and facilitate collaboration in software development projects, allowing developers to host, manage, and share their code.

What are the new features in GitHub?

Recent features include GitHub Copilot (AI-powered coding assistant), Codespaces, improved code search functionality, and enhanced security tools like dependency review and secret scanning.

How many types of GitHub are there?

GitHub offers several plans: Free, Pro, Team, Enterprise, and GitHub One, each catering to different user needs and organization sizes.

Is GitHub only for coding?

While GitHub is primarily used for coding projects, it can also be utilized for documentation, data analysis, project management, collaborative writing, and other non-code projects that benefit from version control and collaboration.