Version control systems are essential tools in modern software development. They allow developers to track changes, collaborate efficiently, and maintain a reliable history of their projects. Among these systems, Git has become the dominant distributed version control system used in both open source and commercial environments.
Learning Git is highly relevant for programmers, software teams, and contributors to collaborative projects. It is widely adopted across platforms and hosting services, and understanding how Git works is a foundational skill for anyone working with code.
About the book
Pro Git (Second Edition) by Scott Chacon and Ben Straub is a comprehensive guide to Git. It covers both fundamental concepts and advanced topics, offering a structured path from introductory material to in-depth technical details.
The book is intended for developers, students, and professionals who want to understand how Git works and how to use it effectively in real-world workflows. It begins with an overview of version control systems and Git basics, then progressively explores branching, collaboration models, server setup, GitHub usage, advanced commands, customization, interoperability with other systems, and Git internals.
No prior deep knowledge of Git is required at the beginning, as the early chapters introduce core concepts and essential commands. Later chapters assume increasing familiarity and are suitable for readers who want to deepen their expertise.
The book is published by Apress and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
What you will learn
By reading this book, you will gain a practical and conceptual understanding of Git. You will learn how to initialize and clone repositories, track and commit changes, manage branches, and collaborate with remote repositories.
The book explains distributed workflows and different collaboration models, including centralized, integration-manager, and other distributed approaches. It also covers working with hosting services such as GitHub, configuring Git environments, and enforcing policies with hooks.
Advanced topics include rewriting history, debugging with Git tools, managing submodules, understanding Git’s object model, packfiles, references, and transfer protocols. The final chapters explore interoperability with other version control systems and provide a detailed overview of Git commands.
The knowledge gained can be applied in individual projects, team-based development, open source contributions, and infrastructure setup for Git servers.
Table of contents
- Preface by Scott Chacon
- Preface by Ben Straub
- Dedications
- Contributors
- Introduction
- CHAPTER 1: Getting Started
- About Version Control
- Local Version Control Systems
- Centralized Version Control Systems
- Distributed Version Control Systems
- A Short History of Git
- Git Basics
- Snapshots, Not Differences
- Nearly Every Operation Is Local
- Git Has Integrity
- Git Generally Only Adds Data
- The Three States
- The Command Line
- Installing Git
- Installing on Linux
- Installing on Mac
- Installing on Windows
- Installing from Source
- First-Time Git Setup
- Your Identity
- Your Editor
- Checking Your Settings
- Getting Help
- Summary
- CHAPTER 2: Git Basics
- Getting a Git Repository
- Initializing a Repository in an Existing Directory
- Cloning an Existing Repository
- Recording Changes to the Repository
- Checking the Status of Your Files
- Tracking New Files
- Staging Modified Files
- Short Status
- Ignoring Files
- Viewing Your Staged and Unstaged Changes
- Committing Your Changes
- Skipping the Staging Area
- Removing Files
- Moving Files
- Viewing the Commit History
- Limiting Log Output
- Undoing Things
- Unstaging a Staged File
- Unmodifying a Modified File
- Working with Remotes
- Showing Your Remotes
- Adding Remote Repositories
- Fetching and Pulling from Your Remotes
- Pushing to Your Remotes
- Inspecting a Remote
- Removing and Renaming Remotes
- Tagging
- Listing Your Tags
- Creating Tags
- Annotated Tags
- Lightweight Tags
- Tagging Later
- Sharing Tags
- Checking out Tags
- Git Aliases
- Summary
- Getting a Git Repository
- CHAPTER 3: Git Branching
- Branches in a Nutshell
- Creating a New Branch
- Switching Branches
- Basic Branching and Merging
- Basic Branching
- Basic Merging
- Basic Merge Conflicts
- Branch Management
- Branching Workflows
- Long-Running Branches
- Topic Branches
- Remote Branches
- Pushing
- Tracking Branches
- Pulling
- Deleting Remote Branches
- Rebasing
- The Basic Rebase
- More Interesting Rebases
- The Perils of Rebasing
- Rebase When You Rebase
- Rebase vs. Merge
- Summary
- CHAPTER 4: Git on the Server
- CHAPTER 5: Distributed Git
- CHAPTER 6: GitHub
- CHAPTER 7: Git Tools
- CHAPTER 8: Customizing Git
- CHAPTER 9: Git and Other Systems
- CHAPTER 10: Git Internals
- Git in Other Environments
- Embedding Git in your Applications
- Git Commands
- Index
Book details
- Title: Pro Git (Second Edition)
- Author(s): Scott Chacon and Ben Straub
- Main category: Software Engineering
- License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
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