this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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Can you suggest an interesting project on git for an absolute beginner ? (cafe.coffee-break.cc)
submitted 18 hours ago by LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc to c/ask@piefed.social
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I am trying out git on my local system, and I am a complete beginner, that is I have 0 knowledge of git. For a starting I wish to undertake some kind of project to get the hang of how it works. I wish to do it locally, but if you are interested, I am ready to work as a team on GitHub. Do you have any idea ? It ought to be graphical and fun !

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[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 6 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

As a beginner, I'd start with small things. And not in a real code repository. Copy a few text files into a directory, and then commit them into version control. Modify them. See how the workflow is. Check if you can go back 2 versions and find out what changed. Do a branch and edit stuff there, then get it into the main branch. See if you can cause a merge conflict and handle it.

If you can do all of that on random placeholder textfiles, you can move on. But we'd need to know which programming languages and software you like to give recommendations.

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

I created a repository from my terminal as a testing. Now I wish to see how git works. What you say, l need to understand in terms of precise git commands, because all this can be done from the terminal. I prefer working on image files. Or you think text files would be better ? I've no idea of programming languages, but maybe html ?? And what do you mean by software ???

[–] vrek@programming.dev 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

One of the big advantages of git is you can see the difference between versions of text. Since you don't programming languages imagine a group report project in school. Sally may make up the general structure and main points. Tom writes a expanded section of 2 of the points. Matt writes another 2. Sue writes the introduction and conclusion. Jason edits it. Git lets you walk back through all that and shows you who did what and lets you keep/discard the changes. It can show you who changed what and when.

With pictures and images it can store the different versions but can't distinguish what exactly changed. Like it can store a picture with a blue background and then someone changes it to an orange background but it can't know exactly what changed only that it's different,if they changed the background of a city skyline they could of also inserted a tiny monkey into one of the windows. You would have to scan everything versed it highlighting only the differences.

Btw .. here is a book with A LOT more details https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I see. So, yes, we'd better work with text files.

Maybe we could start off with HTML ?

[–] vrek@programming.dev 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

If you want html is fine. You could also just write anything like a story, a shopping list, a schedule of chores anything really.

What's your goal with learning git? Is it to learn programming?

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Now you're suggesting me very creative methods regarding how l can use git in my daily life. Maybe l could even create an ui for this purpose :)))

But yes, I do wish to get into programming, as that's what's going to become a major source of employment, whether we work in some kind of organisation or work in some sort of decentralised setup.

[–] vrek@programming.dev 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Basically anything you want to track the changes to can be used with git.

If you want to get into programming something I would recommend is deciding if you want front end or back end development. What that means is like do you want to do ui/ux or computation work? The basics are similar but quickly diverge. Html is front end, it's making things look good and easy for the user. Something like rust or c# is more backend. Do you want to design what the user sees or how to solve problems?

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I need to learn and experiment a lot. The picture emerges as l progress. Designing what the user sees is also a problem.

[–] vrek@programming.dev 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Sounds like you like front end better. Html and css are basics of web design and good starting points, some JavaScript might also be beneficial. Here's a fun thing you can do, go to most websites, press f12 and it will open "developer tools". You can then mess around with the website like changing fonts or editing text or inserting pictures. It will only be on your computer and only exist till you close the tab/window but fun to play with

Btw totally don't do this on your friends twitter page and edit the text of their tweet to make them look bad, screenshot it and then use it as blackmail. Totally do not recommend and I never made it look like my friends posting pictures of shirtless men riding unicorns over a rainbow ... Nope that never happened and you should not do that .... 😀

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I really need to learn the use of those f keys 😄😄😄😄😄

[–] vrek@programming.dev 2 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

You really don't. F1 help f11 full screen f12 developer tools,that's all you need to know

[–] vrek@programming.dev 2 points 11 hours ago

Oh forgot f5 for refresh

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I've used f4 for shutting down the system.

[–] vrek@programming.dev 3 points 11 hours ago

Only with alt but yes

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

I mean you probably want to use Git to solve some kind of problem in your life. The usual use-case is to manage software projects. It's also good at managing text files of any kind. Whatever you like. A HTML file is text, too. It's a bit less good with images and other binary formats. But you can use it to manage them as well.

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know what are binary formats specifically, but I too would be using it for software related projects. It's just that l need to get the hang of these tools.

Right now, Gemini is proving to be a great teacher, telling me the steps and also rectifying my errors.

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

By binary formats, they mean files that are intended to be interpreted or executed by a computer.

For example, a program (my-app.exe) is a binary file. You use it by double clicking it, and the computer runs the program. If you tried to read the file by opening it in a text editor, you would only see gibberish and random characters.

Another example, an image (my-photo.jpg) is a binary file. It's not a program, but you can view the image with a program like Paint. But just like a program, if you opened an image in a text editor, you would still see gibberish. That's because the gibberish is interpreted by Paint so that you can view the image.

But source code (my-website.html) is not a binary file, it's just a text file with fancy formatting and special rules on how to write it. You can open an HTML file in your text editor, and as long as you know the rules you can learn to read it.

[–] LoveEspresso@cafe.coffee-break.cc 1 points 2 hours ago

So, there are certain types of files that can be opened with a text editor, and some kinds of files need special programs to open.

Is the program paint open source ?