Getting Started with Git (and GitHub) on Windows

  1. Install https://git-for-windows.github.io/
  2. Create a GitHub account at https://github.com/
  3. Follow these instructions to generate an SSH key and add it to your GitHub account: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-an-ssh-key/#platform-windows
  4. Create a new GitHub repo using the drop-down in the upper-right of github.com or by visiting https://github.com/new and filling out the form
  5. In Git Bash, type mkdir code; cd code; git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/NAME_OF_REPO_YOU_JUST_CREATED; cd NAME_OF_REPO_YOU_JUST_CREATED but replace YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME with your actual GitHub username :-) and replace NAME_OF_REPO_YOU_JUST_CREATED with the actual name of the repo you just created at github.com/new
  6. Using a text editor, create a file called README.md
  7. Then in Git Bash, run git add README.md; git commit "Initial commit. Added README."; git push origin master

And that's it -- congratulations! You're now all set up with Git on your Windows machine, you have a code directory where you can create Git repos that you add code to, and you're officially an open source developer contributing code on GitHub!