I am a Senior Front-end Consultant, Developer Advocate, and Google Developer Expert for Web. Here, you can find my resume, a collection of my articles covering a wide range of topics and get in contact.

GitHub

You start by creating a public repository with the same name as your GitHub username. In my case, I create a repository called "DaveBitter". In that repository, you add a `README.md`. That's it. From here on you can use MarkDown to tell more about yourself, highlight skills, share social media links and anything you can think of. The README will now be used to display this content on your GitHub profile.

![My GitHub profile README](/img/articles/github-profile-readme.jpg)*My GitHub profile README*

As you can see, my README is fairly brief, but it does allow me to tell a bit more about myself, share a link to my articles and plug some social media channels. As always, some developers take full advantage and push for the limit. A collection with several of these examples can be found in [this collection repository](https://github.com/abhisheknaiidu/awesome-github-profile-readme).

The biggest reason I like this feature is how it converts a "dry" profile page into a more human and personal page. Looking at some of the above-linked examples makes me reminiscent of pages on an old and retired Dutch social media platform called Hyves.

That's all. Make sure to add one of these README files to make the web more personalized, fun and awesome!

GitHub profile README

## The old way
I used to start new projects in three different ways:
* Fork another repository that fits the needs and remove what is not needed
* Fork a boilerplate repository
* Create a new repository and copy files from another local repository

These three do the trick but come with issues. Firstly, I don't want to fork or copy files from another repository to then remove what is not needed. Secondly, I don't want to for another repository and then squash the entire history and/or remove all branches besides the main one.
## The new way
Luckily, the folks over at GitHub recognize these issues and provide a solution: GitHub template repositories. So, how is this different from having a boilerplate repository? Well, they offer:
* A new fork includes the entire commit history of the parent repository, while a repository created from a template starts with a single commit.
* Commits to a fork don't appear in your contributions graph, while commits to a repository created from a template do appear in your contribution graph.
* A fork can be a temporary way to contribute code to an existing project while creating a repository from a template starts a new project quickly.

## This is how I use it
I started off with creating a boilerplate repository. My boilerplate repository, among other things, consists of:

* React.js
* Next.js
* TypeScript
* Jest
* Enzyme
* Storybook
* Husky
* ESLint
* StyleLint
* LintStaged
* Basic styles
* Basic utilities

You see why I want to have all of this quickly for a project.
![The Next Boilerplate repository](/img/articles/next-boilerplate-repository.png)*The Next Boilerplate repository*

Next, I went over to the settings of this repository and enabled 'Template repository'.
![The Next Boilerplate settings](/img/articles/next-boilerplate-settings.png)*The Next Boilerplate settings*
That was all the setup that is required. Whenever I want to start a new project with this repository I go to the Next Boilerplate and click the green button saying 'Use this template'.
I then have the option to:
* Create a new repository and name it
* Give a description
* Make it public or private
* Include all branches

![The Next Boilerplate template](/img/articles/next-boilerplate-template.png)*The Next Boilerplate template*

After clicking 'Create repository from template' I have a new repository with all the files, non of the history or branches and start creating right away.
Please head over to [GitHub](https://help.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archiving-repositories/creating-a-repository-from-a-template) to learn more.

GitHub

Quick Bits

GitHub profile README

Using template repositories with GitHub