DBAs will git it after reading this!

This is a webinar review: “An Introduction to GitHub for DBAs” by Brent Ozar on Feb 8, 2019. Ozar states the “.. video is about the bare minimum to get started with GitHub”. In the webinar, Ozar walks through a code change to sp_blitzlock which is a free DBA tool by Ozar.

Some points made by Ozar in the webinar:

• Github is designed for code, not databases
• Terms
• Repository: source code owned by an account
• Branch: a version of the repository
• Commit: backing up local code to your branch
• Pull request: ask the dev maintainer to pull your code
• Issue: bug or feature request
• Working in your own code
• GitHub desktop should be installed
• Create a branch to do your edits
• Make edits as needed and save locally
• Commit changes to GitHub
• Publish to branch
• In order to merge for everyone, open a pull request
• The maintainer of the project must verify and do a Merge change from pull request
• GitHub might be alot of work but it pays off for team projects and finding who changed what
• Working in someone else’s code like dbatools.io
• Read home page for all info before you contribute
• Make a fork (copy) of their repository to your GitHub account
• Work locally and commit to your branch
• Send a pull request to the maintainer of the project
• Lessons learned the hard way
• Source code for binary files sucks
• Conflict resolution is terrible
• Source control for databases like schema, data, machine config not simple
• Integration between GitHub and SQL Server tools not easy
• Text editors with GitHub integration may be better to use than SSMS
• https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=text+editor&s=stars&type=Repositories
• Learn Markdown if your gonna use GitHub (markdownGuide.org and markdowntutorial.org)
• https://github.com/topics/markdown
• GitHub will help your career
• GitHub code is an easily verified resume and portfolio of your work
• Many other resource links from the webinar
• https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2019/02/video-an-introduction-to-github-for-dbas/
• Webinar slide deck on SlideShare
• https://www.slideshare.net/BrentOzar/an-introduction-to-github-for-dbas-brent-ozar

GitHub will not go away my DBA friends. Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion dollars in 2018. Start using and learning this software development platform tool. GitHub solves the problem of lack of documentation in stored procs, whodunit changes to any database code and large project collaboration. Right?

“An Introduction to GitHub for DBAs” by Brent Ozar is a great starter webinar. I give it a thumbs up!