Code Control
GitHub Enterprise
In February 2012, a project was initiated within the College of Engineering to provide a campus wide version control system that would be made freely available to all faculty and students.
GitHub Enterprise is a solution developed by GitHub that allows for customers to install GitHub on their local network. GitHub Enterprise gives an organization complete control over the management and security of repositories and users. If you are a student or a faculty, you already have access to GitHub Enterprise. Check out some suggested uses to get you started!
The benefits are not just limited to the students instructors are empowered to interact more closely with their students’ efforts. Through this system faculty and teaching assistants can centrally monitor their students’ progress and give ongoing feedback on assignments; provide (and update) starter code to their students to utilize; and in some cases, we’re informed its even being used to automatically grade their submissions. Having a central version control system allows computer science instructors to incorporate concepts like continuous integration and deployment into their curriculums.
I’ve used GitHub at NCSU for over a dozen projects now and it has been a tremendous time saver. Not only does it enable faster collaboration between teammates, but it encourages me to use better software development practices. It allows me to focus on writing code without having to worry about keeping track of versions and overwriting my teammates’ changes. –Former CSC/BME student.
The service continues to be updated and supported by the College of Engineering and can be accessed at https://github.ncsu.edu. Documentation for the service is provided at https://www.webtools.ncsu.edu/github/.
Why should I use GitHub Enterprise over GitHub.com?
GitHub Enterprise is self-contained and self-managed by NC State University. We give our users the opportunity to create an unlimited number of repositories – both public and private – making GitHub Enterprise ideal for classroom use and personal projects. Internal groups, called “Organizations”, allow for finer-granularity in specifying which users have access to group-owned repositories.
Github Enterprise is specifically designed to not compete with Github.com as far as public offering. “Public” inside of Enterprise is public to the institution, not the world.
If a given project is truly open source, then it may be more appropriate to host it at github.com with a personal account.
NCSU iOS Developer Account
Background: There is no cost to create an Apple Developer account. You can turn an existing iTunes account into an Apple Developer account. The developer account is all you need to access the iOS Developer Library. You can code, build, and test in the iOS Simulator with just a free developer account. Joining a Developer Program is what is required to run code on an actual iOS device, and is the part that costs money. However, CSC IT runs the University development program that you’ll be joining, which is free.
Now, with that background information I recommend the following steps before trying to join the University Program:
1. Make sure you create an Apple Developer account using your @ncsu.edu e-mail address. This is required for the University program.
2. Be sure to download Xcode from the App Store.
3. Download and install the Hello World Xcode project from the iOS developer Library: https://developer.apple.com/li
4. Make sure you can run Hello World in the iOS Simulator from Xcode.
5. Begin creation and coding of your project to familiarize yourself with the Xcode IDE and the iOS simulator.
6. Once you feel comfortable with all of the above, contact csc_help@ncsu.edu. And, then we will join your Developer accounts and iOS devices to the University program.
I make the above suggestions because getting the iOS device set up and working can be an rather confusing and complicated process if one is not familiar at all with Xcode.
ShareLaTex
ShareLaTeX is an online, collaborative LaTeX editor that makes the creation, preview, and sharing of LaTeX documents easy through a web-based interface.
Think of it as Google Docs for LaTex with the bonus of skipping the hassle of having to install a local client on your machines.
We now have a departmental site license for the online service (professional version) which all of our faculty, researchers, and students may now take advantage of.
To use the online option, go to https://www.sharelatex.com in your favorite web browser. If this is your first time on the site, you will be asked to register with an email and a password.
Signup with your unityID@ncsu.edu email address. We have preapproved all departmental faculty and students using these email addresses. However, we’d recommend that you NOT use your Unity password for this service.
Course instructors should be aware that we’ve licensed everyone enrolled in an ECE course as well — so feel free to instruct your course to make use of this service. Even the Physics student in your class is licensed, for as long as he’s enrolled in our courses.
In addition, our license allows you to invite any number of collaborators — so you can work with a collegue at another EDU even though they might not also have this site license.
Documentation for the service can be found here: https://www.sharelatex.com/learn
We only update our user lists one or twice a semester, so please contact us if you feel we missed you.