Version Control

When you write code, something you're now capable of doing, you need a place to store it. You might be thinking that place is locally on your computer, but consider this: how do other people work on that same code if it's stored only on your computer?

Version control software like Git answers this question.

In short, it's a decentralised, remote system that stores the code and tracks changes to it (what the change was, who made it, when, etc.) This allows multiple people to create their own copy of the code locally, then push changes they make to the remote copy of the code, allowing other people to update their copies with the changes. This will become more clear as you use it.

Curated Materials

You're going to need to install Git on your local system. To achieve this, the official documentation has you covered. Just select your operating system and following the instructions.

Overall, learning to use Git isn't too hard. It's actually quite simple. It's when you run into problems, like merge conflicts, that the fun really begins. For now, however, just knowing how-to use Git for some basic tasks is enough to get the ball rolling.

The "Pro Git" Book

Lucky for us all, the "Pro Git" book is not only the most comprehensive guide on Git, but it's also completely free of charge to view online. Here's our breakdown of the topics we recommend you read:

1. Getting started
2. Git Basics
3. Git Branching
4. Distributed Git

At this point in time, you're pretty much ready to go, but if you want to watch a video on Git, then we have something for you there too.

Taking it a bit further...

On top of the above documentation, this video, although old, is really very good. It's called "Got For Ages 4 And Up" and it's a great way of presenting Git as a topic. It runs for just over an hour and a half, but you can run through to about the 25 minute mark where branching, IDs, etc, are explored. Ultimately though, the whole video is gold and the questions asked by the audience and very likely the questions you might have too.

Project(s)

Challenges