Git Tutorial

Git Tutorial

Developed in 2005, git is an open-source distributed version control system (VCS) used for tracking the various changes that take place during a development process. Git is designed for collaboration with keeping in mind aspects like security, data integrity, flexibility, and performance. It helps in creating safe points at each stage and lets you create new features or restore a previous stage during the development process.

To store the data, Git makes use of two repositories, one is the local repository where the 90% of the work like staging, committing, viewing the status or the log/history, etc happens and second is the remote repository which is basically a server that is centralized to all users of a project to push and pull the necessary version changes.

Why do we need Git?

Imagine you have a brand-new idea for a game, and you are lone wolf working alone, in this case, you are the sole manager of how things go and will have a tab on all the stages that you took to reach the finale. But, instead of being a lone wolf, you decide to go with the packs, and each one of you writes different aspects pertaining to the game. In such scenarios, as the development progress, it will become chaotic maintaining the changes done by each one of you and you might be left wondering only if there was a more systematic way to deal with it.

Well, luckily for you, there exists a Version Control System (VCS) such as Git to make life easier.

Having a distributed VCS like git will enable one to keep track of how many times the code has been split, rearranged or renamed within the course of the development making networking and sharing easy and efficient.

Interaction with Git will start with you creating a clean workspace(directory) or a branch, make necessary changes to it and commit the same. This repeats until you are ready to share your code with others. At this point, you can connect to another repository to send or push your changes and receive or pull changes to ensure you are in sync with the changes others make. A version change is determined by “Commit” which records ‘who’, ‘what’ and, ‘when’ regarding the change.

Img: Interaction of various developers with Git

Application of Git

Git can provide organizational benefits by providing an agile environment for the development process to take place. Each work created, small or big, is treated as a new branch which can be merged with a master branch when ready.

Git facilitates shorter development cycles, where a big task can be chopped into multiple smaller tasks which enables the business to create market according to their users' needs.

Example

A short example of the Git config and commit

Git config: This sets name and e-mail address to be used with the commits.

Git init: This is used to create a new repository.

Git add: This is used to create a staging area that holds the changes that would be committed.

Git Commit: This command records or snapshots the changes made in the staging area and maintains the version history so we can look back to what all changes have been made over time.

Prerequisites

Git uses command-line interfaces in both Linux and Windows. Git not a programming language rather a logical model to avoid disorder. Exposure to Linux commands, Software development process, it’s lifecycle and applications are required to get started with Git

Target Audience

Git is free and open-source and thus can be used by individuals, collaborators or by organizations for handling everything from small to big projects with speed and efficiency.