How to use Git? (101) ๐Ÿค”

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5 min read

How to use Git? (101) ๐Ÿค”

You clicked on this for a reason! It is to learn the basics of Git. Let's start with the basics.

cool giphy gif source

Name Origin

Or as scientists like to call it "nomenclature" ๐Ÿ˜Ž.

Git was created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for the development of the Linux kernel, with other kernel developers contributing to its initial development. Its current maintainer since 2005 is Junio Hamano.

The name "git" was given by Linus Torvalds when he wrote the very first version. He described the tool as "the stupid content tracker" and the name as (depending on your way): linus_torvalds A random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.

How to install it?

You need to download it, depends on your system:

  • If you are a Windows user:

    1. Visit the official website: https://git-scm.com/
    2. Download the latest version presented to you, at the time of the blog post it is "2.30.2" git_windows_site_screenshot
    3. Run through the installer with default settings, unless you know what you are doing!
  • If you are a macOS user:

    1. Install Homebrew: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" or visit the official website for more up to date docs https://brew.sh/
    2. Install git using brew install git
  • If you are a Linux user:

    1. Use your package manager to install git, for Debian-based distros use sudo apt install git.

See how steps get less as you move down the list ๐Ÿคฃ๐Ÿ™ˆ.

Now we are done with the installation, let's dive into Usage!

Basics

To create a repository, run git init in an empty directory. This creates a hidden folder named .git. This is the repository. Now let's put some code to see how can we use it.

We will create a file named index.html and put some boilerplate HTML code inside of it. Here is the code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>My Awesome Page</title>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

Now run git add index.html to add this file to staging where we can commit it.

Now to commit this code we run: git commit -m "๐Ÿ”ฅ Create index.html" Let's dissect this command:

  1. git this is us calling git tool
  2. commit this is an option inside git
  3. -m "my_message" this option allows us to explain what we did in this commit, basically explaining what we did.

As you can see I love to use emojis ๐Ÿš€๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ™ˆ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿคฃ๐Ÿ˜Ž๐Ÿค”โž•โŒโฌ†๐Ÿšง๐Ÿ“š

Okay now to see the power of git, let's make some changes to index.html, here is the new code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <title>My Awesome Page</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello!</h1>
  </body>
</html>

If you run git status, which is another useful command, you will see the output stating that some changes are not committed. To solve that we first run: git add index.html, Then run git commit -m "โž• Add a cool h1 tag in the body"

We now have basic knowledge of how git works and what does it do and also how to use it!

Take a break and try to do it again alone to make sure you understood everything! ๐Ÿ’ก๐Ÿ‘

The End ๐ŸŽˆ

In the next blog post, we will be seeing how to use git with hosted git providers like GitHub which allows you to take this a step further in the cloud โ˜. Maybe to the moon, who knows! ๐Ÿš€

If you have any questions don't hesitate to DM me on my Twitter, @yazeedalkhalaf