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Ask HN: What made you finally grok Git?

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Re: Ask HN: What made you finally grok Git?

#31

Post by rgoulter »

he_is_legend wrote: post #19
rgoulter wrote: post #15

This took me from "add/commit/push, and pull" to being able to do rebases: https://learngitbranching.js.org/

Friends don't let friends do (non local) rebases.

You can take rebase's `--autosquash` and push's `--force-with-lease` from my cold dead hands. :o)

Well, I think it's untidy to leave commits like "fix typo" or "PR feedback" in a change request, even if the whole changeset gets squashed.

Re: Ask HN: What made you finally grok Git?

#32

Post by cjfd »

worldsayshi wrote: post #25
doix wrote: post #5

When I realized it's just a DAG and you're just manipulating a graph and pointers. Then it just became a matter of mapping git CLI commands to how they manipulate the graph.

I still don't fully understand what the nodes and edges in this graph "is" though. It's not patches. And I can't believe it is "all of the code" in each commit because that sounds very expensive.

Nodes are states of indeed "all of the code". Edges are commits. The "all of the code" thing does sound expensive but it actually is not because git does massive caching. That is what all of the directories in .git/objects are about.

Re: Ask HN: What made you finally grok Git?

#34

Post by kbr- »

worldsayshi wrote: post #25
doix wrote: post #5

When I realized it's just a DAG and you're just manipulating a graph and pointers. Then it just became a matter of mapping git CLI commands to how they manipulate the graph.

I still don't fully understand what the nodes and edges in this graph "is" though. It's not patches. And I can't believe it is "all of the code" in each commit because that sounds very expensive.

On a high level, it is "all of the code" in each commit. Node = commit (= all files + some metadata). Edge = pointer to a parent.

On a lower level, a commit is itself a bunch of pointers to files. Different commits can share files. Think about copy-on-write.

Re: Ask HN: What made you finally grok Git?

#38

Post by kreetx »

worldsayshi wrote: post #25
doix wrote: post #5

When I realized it's just a DAG and you're just manipulating a graph and pointers. Then it just became a matter of mapping git CLI commands to how they manipulate the graph.

I still don't fully understand what the nodes and edges in this graph "is" though. It's not patches. And I can't believe it is "all of the code" in each commit because that sounds very expensive.

Git essentially shares common files & folders. I.e if you change contents of one file in root folder, then a newly created commit would point to a tree that points to this new file and to all the sibling files and folders which git shares with all other commits.

Re: Ask HN: What made you finally grok Git?

#40

Post by jamil7 »

he_is_legend wrote: post #29

The trick(s) to git is not using `git add -A`, and being diligent (as in checking before you commit) about the changes that you are committing. Only add and commit what is relevant to the task that you are working on. But it's even simpler than that. Before you commit anything, check what you are about to commit. Is it what you expected? Is it relevant? Does it work? Has it been tested? Is it likely to pass a code re…

Agree, I tend to go through my work with `git add --patch` and committing that way. I find it also works as a quick refresh on what you actually did and helps you decide how/if to split up your work into multiple commits.
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