The Guide To Git Terminology
What is Git?
Git is a distributed version control system for tracking the changes in source code during software development. It is designed for coordinating work among programmers, but it can be used to track changes in any set of files.
We will learn some Git commands using animations:
What is a Repository?
A repository is like a folder for your project. It contains the collection of the files as well as the history of the changes made to those files.
What is a Branch?
A branch is a parallel version of a repository. It is contained within the repository but does not affect the primary or master branch allowing you to work freely without disrupting the “live” version. you can merge it back into the master branch when you’re ready to publish your changes.
What is a commit?
Commits are easily one of the most frequented activities by a developer using Git. The “commit” command is used to save your changes to the local repository. … Using the “git commit” command only saves a new commit object in the local Git repository.
What is a Clone?
Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of a Git Remote Repository to your local machine.
When we clone a repository, all the files are downloaded to the local machine but the remote git repository remains unchanged. Making changes and committing them to your local repository (cloned repository) will not affect the remote repository that you cloned in any way. These changes made on the local machine can be synced with the remote repository anytime the user wants.
What is a Fetch?
Fetching refers to getting the latest changes from an online repository (like GitHub.com) without merging them in. Once these changes are fetched you can now compare them to your local machines.
What is a Fork?
A fork is a rough copy of another user’s repository. Forking a repository allows you to freely test and debug with changes without affecting the original project.
With this basic knowledge about Git, you can now use it to share code with a team of developers, keep track of their changes, commit changes to your project, authorize contributors, create experimental features with branches, merge code, pull code for templates, and code snippets. These are very useful functionalities in developers day to day lives. You may need a particular form of functionality and someone helpful somewhere has posted the code you need on GitHub or BitBucked. You can get these helpful code snippets by forking them on GitHub.
I hope you can now explore the benefits of Git. For more info, questions or compliments, leave a comment on the comment section below!😁😁