Excuse Me, Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Version Control?

[wavingtowaves]

Title: Include the manuscript's title

Study Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2017.1399928
Citation: @doi:10.1080/00031305.2017.1399928

Citation must follow the Manubot-style citation. Leave it in blank, if unsure.

Suggested keywords that help identify the relevance of this paper to Ecology and Evolution:

• Keyword 1 (replace me, copy and paste more than three if needed)
• Keyword 2 (replace me, copy and paste more than three if needed)
• Keyword 3 (replace me, copy and paste more than three if needed)

Which areas of expertise are particularly relevant to the paper?

• ecology and/or evolution;
• biostatistics;
• informatics and computational research;
• open science and reproducibility;
• other: replace_with_your_suggestion.

Summary

• One thing common to all types of research is that it produces so many files (raw data, figures, manuscripts) that managing the files can take more time than the actual work.
• We can repurpose tools from software dev world to lessen the burden
• structured collaboration is big benefit of using git
• Lots of different ways to interact with git, the actual version control system (gitub, the website, R studio)
• "It is like the “Track Changes” feature from MicrosoftWord, but more rigorous, powerful, and scaled up to multiple files."

Suggested questions to answer about each paper:

• What is the general main finding or takeaway of the paper?
  In this paper, the author outlines the why behind using github for collaboration.

• What did they analyse and how did they do it?
  More of a review paper, than an analysis.

• What does this paper suggest to improve the issue with reproducibility in science?

• Do you have any concerns about methodology or the interpretation of these results beyond this analysis?

Any comments or notes?