Version control with GIT has become an essential skill for developers.
But understanding GIT fundamentals can seem daunting at first.
In this post, I'll provide a quick overview of some core GIT concepts and commands.
Key concepts:
- Repository – Where your project files and commit history are stored
- Commit – A snapshot of changes, like a version checkpoint
- Branch – A timeline of commits that lets you work on parallel versions
- Merge – To combine changes from separate branches
- Pull request – Propose & review changes before merging branches
Key commands:
- git init – Initialize a new repo
- git status – View changed files not staged for commit
- git add – Stage files for commit
- git commit – Commit staged snapshot
- git branch – List, create, or delete branches
- git checkout – Switch between branches
- git merge – Join two development histories (branches)
- git push/pull – Send/receive commits to remote repo
With these basic concepts and commands, you can leverage GIT to track changes, work in branches, and collaborate with others.
Of course there is much more to discover about GIT workflows, advanced commands, and integrations.
But understanding these fundamentals will give you the base to get started productively using GIT version control.
