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Two-Minute Guide to Git

garyrobinson.net

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Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#11

Post by stormbrew »

[deleted] wrote: post #6
garyrob wrote: post #2

My son is creating a software project for a independent study project in high school. I've been nagging him for a while to use version control, and he hasn't done it. I think it's a bit intimidating to be handed a 400-page book on git when he has plenty of other work to do. And also, he doesn't really know, from personal experience, why version control can save him a lot of pain. So he just hasn't taken the time. One…

[deleted]

So instead of using a tool that does all this for you, he should do it all manually, himself, in the most tedious way possible? I mean if he was aiming to learn about version control this might be a good approach to teaching the pains that it solves, but git does all this with approximately 4 pretty painless commands: git add, git commit, git log, and git diff.

Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#12

Post by stevesearer »

garyrob wrote: post #2

My son is creating a software project for a independent study project in high school. I've been nagging him for a while to use version control, and he hasn't done it. I think it's a bit intimidating to be handed a 400-page book on git when he has plenty of other work to do. And also, he doesn't really know, from personal experience, why version control can save him a lot of pain. So he just hasn't taken the time. One…

Git was a little abstract for me to comprehend easily using command line so I just didn't use version control. The concepts made sense in theory, and I knew there would be benefits, but it was difficult to really wrap my mind fully.

I recently began using Tower which gave me some visual cues to the concepts others seem to more easily be able to visualize in their head. Once I get more confident in my workflow I may go back and try using Git from the command line again to see how I like it.

Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#14

Post by garyrob »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #10

I'd add the .gitignore file to the guide, with a link to a site like http://gitignore.io . I think it's both easy and important to learn early that you don't want to commit binaries and push them around with git.

I agree with you -- and it's actually already mentioned, in the little section at the end, "One more thing – optional – may add another minute"

Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#15

Post by delecti »

I had to learn git not too long ago, and found "Git from the bottom up" [1] to be immensely helpful. Until about halfway through reading it I was totally lost, but then everything started to click into place. I had a lot of trouble using git without that decent understanding of the whole system.

This seems like a great guide for people who only need a quick crash course in the specifics of actually using git, but for anyone who still feels lost without that deeper grasp, I definitely recommend "Git from the bottom up".

[1] http://ftp.newartisans.com/pub/git.from.bottom.up.pdf

Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#17

Post by rileyjshaw »

I like the idea but the title's a bit misleading. For comparison, this article is over twice as long as the Git in 5 Minutes guide that you reference. I'm not trying to be snarky, I was just very surprised when I saw the article's length.

People searching for Git in X minutes might prefer a shorter preamble and a more expository form, like this: http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/

/2¢

Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#18

Post by SeanLuke »

garyrob wrote: post #2

My son is creating a software project for a independent study project in high school. I've been nagging him for a while to use version control, and he hasn't done it. I think it's a bit intimidating to be handed a 400-page book on git when he has plenty of other work to do. And also, he doesn't really know, from personal experience, why version control can save him a lot of pain. So he just hasn't taken the time. One…

Your useful guide aside: why not have him use mercurial?

git has a very steep learning curve and an interface only a mother could love. Mercurial on the other hand has a clean interface very similar to svn, and has all the advantages of git that you list above. And can be straightforwardly run over apache to boot. Also the command is one letter shorter than git.

Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#19

Post by develop7 »

garyrob wrote: post #2

My son is creating a software project for a independent study project in high school. I've been nagging him for a while to use version control, and he hasn't done it. I think it's a bit intimidating to be handed a 400-page book on git when he has plenty of other work to do. And also, he doesn't really know, from personal experience, why version control can save him a lot of pain. So he just hasn't taken the time. One…

well, all these points valid for all DVCS, not just Git.

Re: Two-Minute Guide to Git

#20

Post by chetanahuja »

[deleted] wrote: post #6
garyrob wrote: post #2

My son is creating a software project for a independent study project in high school. I've been nagging him for a while to use version control, and he hasn't done it. I think it's a bit intimidating to be handed a 400-page book on git when he has plenty of other work to do. And also, he doesn't really know, from personal experience, why version control can save him a lot of pain. So he just hasn't taken the time. One…

[deleted]

Wow. Either this is a fantastically straight-faced troll comment or you reeeeally missed the whole point of using version control tools.
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