Simply – Git is a utility program for managing versions of your source code files
Git is a version control system. If you didn’t already know this, version control systems are programs used in software development projects that provide a convenient way to backup a development team’s work in progress.
Note: In development projects involving multiple developers, Git provides a way for the developers to develop their individual contributions independently, and then when the code is ready, to merge their bits into the code base.
Learning resources
The following table contains links to the learning resources that I used to write this cookbook.
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Git for Ages Four and Up | To speed up your climb up the learning curve, you’ve got to see this video. |
| The Pro Git Book | A comprehensive Git reference manual. |
| Think like a Git | A good conceptual discussion. |
| The official Git documentation | Straight from the horse’s mouth. |
| EGit/Git For Eclipse Users | If you’ve installed EGit for Eclipse, then I recommend that you take a look at this help topic. |
Git is a distributed version control system
Source Depot and Subversion are centralized version control systems. At the heart of these systems is a central database (or repository). All merges occur at the central database. Git doesn’t work like that. Everyone working on a project using Git takes a copy (an enlistment in the parlance of Git) of the entire repository, and there isn’t a central database. But there is a remote repository that serves as the master or funnel point. By default, this is called origin. Everyone working on the same project synchronizes their local enlistment with the origin repository. That way everyone keeps up to date with everyone else’s work.
Git isn’t based on the file system
Unlike all other version control systems, Git isn’t file system-based. The Git system is abstracted on top of the file system. To use Git successfully, you have to understand the nature of Git, and the way that Git works. The road to getting there isn’t easy because it requires comprehending a paradigm shift. To an extent, you must unlearn what you understand about source control systems per se. So, to be successful, you must – free your mind!
Eclipse cheat sheets
In Eclipse, if you click Help > Search, the Help tab appears and it has an input field for searching the local help system. If you type git into it and press Return, a list of candidate topic links appears. The first one is “Cloning a Git Repository”. Click it, and the “Cheat Sheets” tab appears. This is interesting. This seems to be a help system that is tied to a Wizard-driven interface, which makes it into a cool tutorial/walk-through system.