this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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Git

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Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Resources

Rules

  1. Follow programming.dev rules
  2. Be excellent to each other, no hostility towards users for any reason
  3. No spam of tools/companies/advertisements. It’s OK to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the community should not be self-promotion.

Git Logo by Jason Long is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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Your Git horror stories (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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We all have been there... For the beginner it's easy to mess things up. What are your horror stories with Git?

Link to xkcd

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[–] mookulator 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Learning git was like every other cool tech thing for me (including the fediverse). People explain it in such a convoluted way. It’s like they think you want to understand the deep theory of it before you get up and running!

Yes, git is more than just a “save box”, but really, new users should absolutely just think about it as a save box. Learn the fancy shit later.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly this is me. At this point I really should know better but I dont, and every tuorial seems to be speaking a whole new language. Any tips for where to learn this?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Thank you! I will read this in detail next week once I'm back on the clock and work is paying me to read it 😁😋

[–] mookulator 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s ridiculous isn’t it? You shouldn’t have to feel like you’re learning some cryptic new language to use version control software.

Just do a really simple work flow:

  1. “Clone” the code repository from the internet onto your computer (“clone” = “copy”). You only do this once.
  2. Edit code like normal
  3. When you feel happy with some changes you’ve made, “commit” them (“commit” = “save”)
  4. When you’ve committed a few changes, “push” them back to the original repository so your coworkers can see your changes (“push” = “publish”) Repeat

There are a few good practices:

  • “Pull” often. I.e. update your local copy of the repository with your coworkers’ changes
  • Write an intelligible message with every commit so you and your coworkers can understand what you changed
  • If you’re going to take on a big project, make a “branch” and work there. A branch is like a copy within a copy of the repository so you don’t mess with code that’s already working. When you’re happy with a bunch of commits/pushes in a branch, you “merge” it back into the main repository.

Everything else is just details!