Join our NCAA bracket challenge and sharpen your Git skills at the same time! Whether you're a Git newbie or a seasoned veteran, follow these steps to submit your bracket predictions.
Follow the instructions below to participate, or check out video instructions here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAGij-fctciAzGklzjKztZd7MEZLlp6_v
Join by opening a new issue. Click Issues and then new issue.
The issue should be titled: "{your-github-username} joining merge madness"
It's important to title it like that, as that will create a new branch named after your username.
At the top-right corner of the page, click the Fork button. This creates a copy of the repository in your GitHub account.
Open your terminal or Git Bash. Clone your forked repository to your local machine with the following command:
git clone https://github.com/<your-github-username>/merge-madness.git
Change directory to the cloned repository:
cd merge-madness
Change to your branch, the one that has the same name as your username:
git checkout -b <your-github-username>
The easiest way to fill out the bracket is by running fill_bracket.py.
That will prompt you to provide the winner of each game.
After picking each game, it will generate a new file called final_bracket.json with all of your picks.
(If you don't want to run python, you can open initial_bracket.json in a text editor and manually fill in winners, but you must ensure you keep the formatting, spelling, capitalization exactly the same)
After you've filled out your bracket, it's time to commit your changes:
Add the modified bracket.json file:
git add final_bracket.json
Commit your changes with a meaningful message:
git commit -m "Submitting <your-github-username> bracket"
Push your new branch to GitHub. Remember that your branch name is the same as your GitHub username.
git push origin <your-github-username>
Go to your forked repository on GitHub. You'll see a Compare & pull request button for your recently pushed branches. Click it to create a pull request.
Ensure the base repository is set to ewimpey/merge-madness and the base branch is main. The "compare" branch should be your username branch.
Give your pull request a title and description, such as <your-github-username> bracket submission
Click Create pull request.
Congratulations! You've successfully submitted your bracket for the Merge Madness challenge.
Next Steps:
- Confirm that the pull request gets approved
- Watch the repository for updates, including the leaderboard and game results.
- There will be some more madness to come once we get to the Sweet 16!
- Feel free to discuss predictions, strategies, and Git tips in the Issues section!
Video instructions are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkZGB_PzvIo&list=PLAGij-fctciAzGklzjKztZd7MEZLlp6_v
Find a branch that you want to merge into your branch. You can see all submitted branches in the base repository: ewimpey/merge-madness
Go to your forked copy of the repository and click Branches then New Branch. You can choose the source for the new branch, and you should choose the source as ewimpey/merge-madness and then select the branch you want to borrow from. Click "Create New Branch"
Create a new pull request. The base repository should be your branch on your forked copy of the repository. The "compare" branch should be the new branch that you just created and want to merge into your own branch. You'll see a message that says "Can't Automatically Merge" since the two brackets will be different. That's okay. Click Create Pull Request.
On the pull request, you'll see a note that says "This branch has conflicts that must be resolved". Click on Resolve Conflicts. Here you will see a text editor that highlights all of the differences between your branch's final_bracket.json and the new branch's final_bracket.json. You can edit this file directly, only keeping whichever pick you want to keep and deleting the other pick. You can keep all of the new branch's picks, or select only some of them. Once all conflicts are resolved, click mark as resolved
Click merge pull request to merge the new branch into your branch.
Create another pull request to merge your forked copy of your branch back into the base copy of your branch (identical to how you submitted the original bracket).