Refresher : Git essentials

Git allows software developers (and even anyone who works with any kind of data) to share bundles of files in repositories:

• Each person can have a local repository (aka version)
  • they can then push that to a remote repository (typically on GitHub.com)
• Many people can work on the same remote repository
• Everything magically gets merged based on changes called diffs...
  • ...unless a conflict happens in which case developers typically resolve the conflict (or pull their hair and/or skin out)

When things run smoothly enough, Git can feel like the most useful thing in the world as it:

• tracks changes
• allows us to rollback changes
• shows who did something, line-by-line
• simplifies code review by a lot
• promotes open source development

Git basics

To "get by with Git", one just needs to know "the flow" in addition to these actions:

• Cloning
  • copying a repository to one's own "local" computer
• Initializing
  • starting a local repository
• Staging
  • preparing changes to a local repository for a commit
• Committing
  • confirming changes to a local repository
• Pushing
  • sending committed changes from a local repository to a remote repository
• Pulling
  • "fetching" changes from a remote repository to a local repository
• Branching
  • creating a separate sub-version ("checking out a new branch") of a repository
• Merging
  • requesting an integration of a sub-branch into the main branch
  • confirmation of this merge usually via a "pull request approval"

Many more idiosyncratic terms in the Git universe exists so we will try to cover them in this series!