CodeForPhilly / CodeForPhilly/decentralized-data

"Actually Using Git": can't branch on an empty repo

Open Beginner friendly
#16 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
CSS
Stars
6
Forks
2
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

On tutorials/actually-using-git/lessons/conflicting-branches.md , there are three reasonable ways to initialize a repo:
1. Reuse an existing repo
2. Create a new repo on Github and then clone it
3. Use `git init`

If a participant uses the third option (`git init`) and then, following the directions, immediately tries to create a new branch, they'll get an error:

```
fatal: Not a valid object name: 'master'.
```

Instead, they should create a dummy `readme.md`, add and commit it, and then proceed.

The instructions should be clarified for folks who choose the third option.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Open tutorials/actually-using-git/lessons/conflicting-branches.md and review the instructions for participants who choose git init. Clarify that they should create, add, and commit a dummy readme.md before creating a branch. Done means the git init path no longer leads to the reported error.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
git
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
1/5
Estimated time
Under an hour
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
65/100

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