Demystifying Git: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Version Control

Category

Development Tools

Level

Intermediate

Number

Git and GitHub play pivotal roles in ensuring code integrity, collaboration, and version control.

Git → available as a command-line interface (CLI) or a graphical user interface (GUI), serves as the memory card for your code.

It allows you to save and track the progress of your code, maintaining different versions so that you can revert to earlier stages if needed.

Accessing Git is straightforward, especially on Windows, where you can use GitBash

GitHub → is a website where we save the local things we made using git to the internet so other people can go back to what I've done and use my code - etc.

Commands are fundamental when working with Git:

mkdir semo: This command is used to create a new directory (folder) with the specified name. For example, mkdir semo will create a folder named "semo" in your current working directory.
cd semo: This command is used to change your current working directory to the specified directory. For instance, cd semo will move you into the "semo" directory you created in the previous step.
touch index.html app.css: The touch command is used to create empty files with the specified names. In this case, it creates two files named "index.html" and "app.css" in the current directory.
git init: This command initializes a new Git repository in your current working directory. It creates a hidden .git folder that stores all the necessary information for version control.

git init "name of folder": You can also initialize a Git repository directly in a specific folder by providing the folder's name after git init.

git add [file name] or git add .: The git add command is used to stage changes for commit. You can either specify individual file names to stage those files or use git add . to stage all changes in the current directory.
git commit -m "describe the changes message": This command commits the staged changes to the Git repository with a descriptive message. It's like saving a snapshot of your changes at that moment.

git add is akin to preparing items in a box (staging area) for shipment.
git commit seals the box and sends it off, making those changes a permanent part of your project's history.

git log: This command displays a log of all commits made in the repository. It provides information such as commit hash values, authors, dates, and the messages describing the changes made in each commit.
git checkout [commit hash value]: This command allows you to switch to a specific commit in your repository's history. By providing the commit hash value, you can go back to a previous saved version of your project.

summary:

Git serves as version control, storing different stages of your code for easy retrieval and management.
Using commands like git add, git commit, developers can maintain code integrity and securely collaborate on projects.