Benefits of Git

[kieranjmartin]

Use this issue to capture any benefits of git as you see them

[PallabiniDash]

Using Git in programming helps keep track of every change made to code, datasets, and reports. It makes it easy to go back to previous versions and see who made what changes. This is especially useful when multiple people are working on the same project. Git allows programmers and QC teams to work simultaneously without conflicting with each other’s work. It also creates a clear history of updates, which is important for audits and reviews. With Git, everything is more organized and easier to manage.

[corinabioinformatic]

In my experience as a Data Scientist in Pharma:

Benefits:

• Your code is stored and its history, and the comments remain within one main place. --> Traceability is key in Pharma (specially for regulatory submissions and audits) 📖
• You can collaborate with others code with less risk -normally- to break anything 🌐
• If you like coding, you will love the terminal functions. If you don't, there are multiple IDEs with pretty interfaces to pull and push code. 💻

[tomratford]

In my opinion, git offers only one direct benefit and one cultural benefit. The direct benefit is simply that it is a version control system. We have the ability to revert and see the entire history of changes for a file. This makes the need for change logs in file headers largely obsolete and also means programmers can make major changes to the code (say, rewriting a whole output program to be quicker) without fear of losing the original in any way.

The cultural benefit is the mentality git promotes. Git encourages a culture of innovation, collaboration and efficiency in S&P. The scope of this working group has already eclipsed just 'git' the software to explore git platforms, tooling with git and an alterative QC process with git as potential efficiency gains. One could argue the fact that our existing workflows do not fit 'neatly' into git is a good thing - and forces closer examination of the process and its core purpose.

[langkabh]

I fully agree wtih what @PallabiniDash said. The big main benefit I see is that git is simply a very good versioning tool.

Additional benefits I see beyond these come with the use of git-related tools (e.g. GitHub or GitLab) which allow you to create issues and pull requests/merge requests. These can capture conversations around specific changes and allow you to track and record QC activities beyond the bare changes made to the programs.