If working in VS Code, does forking even make sense?

[ssawczyn]

Hi everyone,
I know we talked at length about forking vs cloning and I think I understand the differences well enough. The thing I'm still unsure about though is: If I'm planning to work on a repository in VS Code, does it make sense to fork it at all? Since I'll have to pull the latest changes either way in VS Code, does it matter whether I pull them from the forked copy of a repo, or directly from the original? Again, assuming I'm working in VS Code and not on the GitHub site, does forking offer any advantages? I'm sure I'm probably missing something obvious, so appreciate any thoughts as, well, someone else out there might be missing it too. :)

[alexecution]

It's still recommended to fork, as even though you are working in VS Code you are still working with a repository, and when you want to contribute back to something it's better to fork it in your own account, create your branch for the fixes or features you want to add within that fork, do what you need to do and then after committing your changes in that branch, make a pull request to merge those changes back to the parent.

[ssawczyn]

Thank you @alexecution this is helpful. I think one way of looking at it is that by forking, I can create my own branches from within my forked version where as I might not be able to do that on a repository, either because rules might prevent it or because things would just get a bit crazy with a bunch of people creating a bunch of their own branches. I'm sure there are other advantages as well, but is my understanding correct at least where branches are concerned?

[alexecution]

Yes, that's basically it in a nutshell, there is obviously more advantages of forking but it would take me awhile to explain it all, but there could be some more explanations in the documentation, if not then that might actually be something that's worth being added at some point.

[ssawczyn]

Thank you, this has been very helpful. I'll also go through the documentation again as I know it's being updated but I agree that there might be an opportunity to add a bit of detail around this. Perhaps that's even a section I could write myself once I am feeling a bit more comfortable. :) Thanks again for jumping in with the explanation.