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Setting up

Setting up Codespaces

The first step is to fork this repository to your own GitHub account. This will allow you to make changes to the code without affecting the original repository.

Now head back over to your newly created repo. Everything in the main repo is not needed, so we do a few things:

Change the default branch

  • Head to the Repo Settings
  • There is a heading called "Default Branch"
  • Click on the pencil icon and change the default branch to basic

Delete the main branch

  • Head back to the Code tab
  • Locate the branch dropdown and click on the thing to the right of it
  • Find the main branch and delete it

Rename the basic branch to main

  • In the same page, next to the trash can, click on the three dots
  • Click on "Rename branch"
  • Change the name to main

Rename the repo

  • Head back over to the Settings tab
  • At the top, you can change the name of the repo to whatever you want
  • Rename it to cancer-prediction-<your-crsid>

Now open Codespaces on main:

You should now be in the browser version of VSCode. Unzip the folder you just downloaded, and drag it into the VSCode file explorer.

This is the absolute most basic version of code being submitted to GitHub. But we can do better...

Note

Even though we are using Codespaces, the general packaging process will still work with regular VSCode on your desktop.

Create a new branch

It is good practice to do development work on a new branch, but first we should set up a virtual environment and install any dependencies.

Set up the new virtual environment with, 

python -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate

You can verify the path of the python version you are using by running 

which python
and this should return something like:\ /workspaces/cancer-prediction/venv/bin/python

We install the dependencies using 

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Notice that in the version control tab, we have over 1,000 unstaged changes!! If we have a look at these, they are mostly files from the virtual environment. We do NOT want to push these to our repo. So we create the three core files we need: a .gitignore, a LICENSE, and a README.md, either using the UI or by typing in the terminal:

touch .gitignore LICENSE README.md

and populate it with boiler plate text. If you have Copilot, it will do it for you, or you can copy the one here.

Once you update, all the additional files should vanish from the staging area. Once this is done, commit the changes, and sync the remote version with the local version.

Now create a new branch using the UI or using the git CLI. 

git checkout -b dev

This will automatically create and move over to a new branch called dev. The environment and all the packages we installed should also be moved along with it.

In the source control tab, hit "Publish Branch".

When you see this symbol:


Dark Souls Bonfire

it means that you should commit and push your changes to the repository. They indicate key checkpoints in the workshop.

Further reading