Git Pocket Guide

Once again this is not a sponsored review by my 2 cents.

This pocket guide it’s not an introduction on git the best practices, but it will show some options available and will boost your confidence and knowledge to solve most of the common problems. It’s full of practical examples with just enough deep dive into git to show you the things work under the hood.

This book is very good “to show you the tip of the iceberg”. Git, like any other distributed systems it’s complex, but most of its common features and operations are easy to understand aren’t so difficult and if you’re not familiar with the cli, there are plenty of tools to get you started.

I liked the practical approach and the format of the book as well. I was looking for a book that could help me to solve the less frequent problems on git that I find from time to time.  Looking back, I started using GIT more than 7 years ago and before that, I’ve used most of the popular centralized and distributed systems around for source control management such as CVS, SVN, Mercurial working with small teams and on projects with a fast release cycle (daily or weekly releases into production).

And I’m still not a master of GIT for sure! I could remember many times over these years I’ve realised how poor was my knowledge and understanding of GIT was.  I was always desperately looking for a book to pointing me in the right direction.

Git, as any other tools, it can be implemented into meaningful ways and it can be intimidating to fully understand it.

 

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920024972.do

Git Pocket Guide

A Working Introduction

By Richard Silverman

Publisher: O’Reilly MediaRelease Date: July 2013Pages: 234
  • Examine

    the state of your project at earlier points in time

  • Learn the basics of creating and making changes to a repository

  • Create branches so many people can work on a project simultaneously

  • Merge branches and reconcile the changes among them

  • Clone an existing repository and share changes with push/pull commands

  • Examine and change your repository’s commit history

  • Access remote repositories, using different network protocols

  • Get recipes for accomplishing a variety of common tasks

Is this book or topic relevant for you?

Of course, It’s up to you but ask yourself some of the following questions.

Why we need source control?

We need to manage our code (or content) in a sensible and meaningful way.
Collaborate on a different project means keep tracking of changes, being capable of working exploring all the possible options not just in a linear fashion but when needed branching or merging our workflows.

What content can be managed by git?

If it’s in a text format.. anything!

Distributed VS Centralised?

There is no right or wrong. Git is by design distributed. Understanding the pros and cons we can choose wisely if its fit for purpose for our needs and projects.

Tutorials or Books? Which one it’s a good place to learn GIT?

Both. Get started with tutorials it’s great, the satisfaction of getting the things done pretty quickly it’s the short term rewarding.  What I personally like the most is think is starting with a book like “git pocket guide” side by side with some tutorials, it’s more beneficial to do it sooner than later.
Understanding the fundamentals will make our life much easier especially if we will be exposed to this subject for a long period of time.

Local Repo vs Shared Project

Sharing it’s not only caring, but it’s learning from others and improve at all level. Not our code or content will get better, but we will become more capable of communicating with others increasing the overall code quality, commit messages, the structure of our projects.

Use MarkDown

It’s not required, but it’s beneficial especially if you’re using a github, gitlab, bitbucket or any other tool. Learning MarkDown would take from 5 or 10 minutes, but having the habit of documenting and organising your documentation it’s a very valuable skill.

Meetup Event:  Git 101 @ RTP User group

It just happened that I read from Mike Kanakos that the RTO User group it’s organising a GIT 101 during the PowerShell meetup event which I think it’s a perfect way to get you started and learn.

It’s free and you can join the event remotely so don’t miss this opportunity.

https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/Research-Triangle-PowerShell-Users-Group/events/258953675/

Looking for git tutorials?

Choose your favourite resource or videos, these are the most common one:

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.