Git Good (Enough)

You can do a lot of things with git, and many of the rules of what you should do are not so much technical limitations but are about what works well when working together with other people. So git is a very powerful set of tools.

- Linus Torvalds

Video

Git

Git is a class of software known as a version control system (VCS). It is used to help developers manage the complexity of collaborative development, as well as to create and store robust backups of software.

While very few devs are actually git experts, knowing the basics is absolutely essential for collaborative development. While other VCS exist, git is used almost exclusively these days.

Objectives

In this module, we will:

1. Present a graphical model of git
2. Review some important git operations (with pictures)
3. Look at a common procedure for making a contribution

Reading

• The 10 git commands you need

Additional Resources

• Software Carpentry’s Git intro
• 20 Git Commands With Examples
• Using VCS in VSCode
• Official git documentation
• Git Cheat Sheet
• Branching Strategies
• Reverting Commits
• Commit Autonomy
• Oh my Git!, a mobile game to learn git concepts
• git-sim, create git graph visualizations and simulations

Note

For some versions of quarto, mermaid diagrams render too small regardless of fig-width settings. If the diagrams are not readable use this.