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A simple guide for getting started with git

rogerdudler.github.com

41–50 of 132 posts

Re: A simple guide for getting started with git

#42
post #37
post #3

Nice. I will definitely show this to people who are new to SCM. How about adding Linux install instructions? Something like, apt-get install git for Debian based distros.

pixeldude, Incoming pull request, in case you don't see it. https://github.com/rogerdudler/git-guide/pull/2

Thanks, I've seen it. I need to gather all feedback tonight and bundle it for an update.

Re: A simple guide for getting started with git

#45

What's the point of including instructions for downloading git for MacOSX, when it's already installed in the system by default?

I don't think Git ships with OS X, does it? I think it's bundled with XCode but not with the base OS.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/18470/why-is-git-no...

Re: A simple guide for getting started with git

#46

I don't get this. Sure, the tutorial looks very pretty, but it does not explain any concepts. "Create a new repository." What is a repository? What do I do with it? The HEAD is a tree "which points to the last commit you've made". Huh? A tree can point? The one in my garden can't. Also, what's a commit? I thought "commit" was a verb, not a noun. And so on. It's nice that people want to make something as complex as gi…

Thanks for your feedback! I completely understand your point. Maybe it would make sense to make another guide with an intro on Source Control Management systems and link it in the git guide. Currently, you need to have a little bit of knowledge on an SCM. But I will think about it.

I found this guide very useful, so thanks for making it. :) I've used SVN, Mercurial, and git before, so knowing those made this easy to digest. Plus it covers stuff about git I never knew existed, like gitk. So cool!

Re: A simple guide for getting started with git

#47

I don't get this. Sure, the tutorial looks very pretty, but it does not explain any concepts. "Create a new repository." What is a repository? What do I do with it? The HEAD is a tree "which points to the last commit you've made". Huh? A tree can point? The one in my garden can't. Also, what's a commit? I thought "commit" was a verb, not a noun. And so on. It's nice that people want to make something as complex as gi…

Thanks for your feedback! I completely understand your point. Maybe it would make sense to make another guide with an intro on Source Control Management systems and link it in the git guide. Currently, you need to have a little bit of knowledge on an SCM. But I will think about it.

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Re: A simple guide for getting started with git

#48

I don't get this. Sure, the tutorial looks very pretty, but it does not explain any concepts. "Create a new repository." What is a repository? What do I do with it? The HEAD is a tree "which points to the last commit you've made". Huh? A tree can point? The one in my garden can't. Also, what's a commit? I thought "commit" was a verb, not a noun. And so on. It's nice that people want to make something as complex as gi…

I agree with you in general, but I feel like you take a wrong perspective of it. The author takes a top-down approach to teaching, which basically means that he thought about this tutorial from his perspective, someone that was already intimately familiar with the details. This, as you pointed out, is wrong. If this is a tutorial for beginners, you need to have some explanation of what "checking-out" means, what "tre…

[deleted]

Re: A simple guide for getting started with git

#50

The giant font doesn't make it any easier to understand. Stuff like 'your local repository consists of three "trees" maintained by git' only makes sense to people who already know how git works.

I'm always happy about better wording. Any ideas?

I think the problem is that the guide doesn't explain the vocabulary it uses at all. There are programmers (and definitely non-programmers) who might not have heard the word "tree" used to describe a directory filled with files and other directories. It's immediately clear once it's explained, and the guide even has little drawings that look like a directory tree, but for people new to version control and people who have used CVS or SVN this use of the word might be foreign. The same with "commit" since someone coming from another system has a different idea of what that means and someone new to version control has no idea.

Honestly, I'm not even sure you need to talk about "trees". The first chapter of Pro Git doesn't mention them at all, and this section describes the working dir, the index and HEAD without using the word: http://progit.org/book/ch1-3.html Instead he talks about "snapshots" and "stages".

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