Git Version Control

Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes in any set of computer files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers who are collaboratively developing source code during software development. It is a block-chain of changes. You typically install Git on your local machine.

Github is an online web version of Git that has become the defacto place to push your local changes to.

Git was originally authored by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for development of the Linux kernel, with other kernel developers contributing to its initial development. Git is designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. It is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning-fast performance. Git is widely used by developers worldwide for a range of applications, including deep learning and machine learning, signal processing and communications, image and video processing, control systems, test and measurement, computational finance, and computational biology.

Git must be the most powerful, simplest method to track your changes to any file you create. Git works best with simple text editors, like Notepad++, VS Code, or any IDE.

Purpose

Knowing Git is a requirement for any programming job, much like Calculus is a requirement for engineering jobs. But you don't need to be a developer to use it. It's not a programming language. Have you ever created a Word document, and you saved versions of that file with the file name containing the date and time; e.g. "Resume 2023-08-22 10:53.docx", and with Track Changes on? Why did you do this? Because you wanted to go back to see what you did, or perhaps to undo changes if the formatting gets corrupted. Git does this automatically for you, for all files in a folder tree.

With Git, you and your friends can work together in a team-manner to create a project that is expressed as a set of files.

Some uses of Git:

ParentsChildren

Links

Courses