If you are a programmer, you must have heard about Git and GitHub. This article will not contain any code, We will first get familiar with the interface I will try and explain to you the basics of theory and concepts in plain English to help you get started with Git. This is the 1st article in the Git and GitHub series.
Before jumping in for git let’s understand what version control is.
VCS or version control is a management system that tracks changes in a computer file.
It is a software tool that records and manages changes to the source code over a period of time.
So imagine that you are working with your friend on a shared document and two of you are making changes in the file at the same time, what will happen? How will you track the change and mark the owner of the same? Or maybe you are working in a large team, how will you manage then?
It helps developers to work efficiently.
Consider another scenario, If you are working on a project and modify or update your code on a regular basis and on one specific day, you wish to rollback and revert files back to a previous state or revert the entire project back to a previous state, compare changes over time, see who last modified something that might be causing a problem, who introduced an issue and when, and more, a version control system can do this for you.
Types of Version control
So basically there are three major types of VCS.
Local Version Control Systems
Centralized Version Control Systems
Distributed Version Control Systems
We will not get into too much detail about this in this article.
What is Git?
There are various Version control system in the market but Git is one of the most popular amongst them.
Git was originally developed in 2005 by the creator of Linux.
Git is free and open-source software so, anyone can use it.
You cannot remember every change that you make, quite obvious, right? But what you can do is remember a simple command.
Honestly, it has made our life easier as It keeps track of the entire history of things that you are working on and allows us to revert back to a previous version no matter how many times you have made changes to your file.
It has simplified the process of working with other people and encourages collaboration among developers and makes working in a team really easy.
Git widely used by various organizations, businesses, and even startups to manage their code, it lets you watch the entire timeline. We will study this in detail when we will learn how to set up, install and use GitHub in the next part of this series.
What is GitHub?
GitHub is one of the most advanced and developed hosting platforms for version control and collaboration. It is a web-based service for version control using Git has all the benefits of git and even more.
I have explained the look and feel and an overview of GitHub in the video. check it out for a detailed explanation.
Are Git and GitHub the same?
No, Git and GitHub are not the same.
Git is a version control system that lets you manage and keep track of your source code and history whereas GitHub is a cloud-based hosting service that lets you manage git repositories.
That’s Git and GitHub in a nutshell. Do you have a GitHub account? Share the link below. And with that, it's a wrap! I hope you found the article useful! Which one is your favorite Podcast? Share in comments below.
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