Version Control Fundamentals
Version control records changes to files over time so a team can inspect earlier versions, compare work, and combine concurrent edits. It uses a repository for history and a working copy for the files a person edits.
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Intro
Version Control Fundamentals
Version control is a system that records changes to files or directories over time. It lets a person or team inspect an earlier state, compare two states, identify the change that introduced a problem, and restore a selected version. Source code is a common use case, but the model also applies to configuration, documentation, and other project files.
A version control system has two essential views of the same project. The repository stores the recorded history. A working copy is a local, editable view of one project state. Client software connects the working copy to the repository: it observes changes, records a new revision, and exchanges revisions with other copies or a shared service.
The unit of history
A recorded change is commonly called a revision or commit. It represents a deliberate project state plus enough metadata to place that state in history, such as an author, a time, a message, and a relationship to earlier revisions. The exact storage model differs by tool. Git records snapshots connected by parent relationships, while other systems can present history primarily as a sequence of revisions. The useful mental model is stable across tools: history is evidence, not a pile of renamed backup files.
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Sources
- https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-About-Version-Control
Supports
- Version control records file changes over time and permits comparison and recall of earlier states
- Local, centralized, and distributed version-control models
- Distributed clones mirror repository history and can work with multiple remotes
- The foundation link rationale and centralized-versus-distributed quiz answers
- https://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.8/svn.basic.version-control-basics.html
Supports
- Repository and working-copy roles
- Historical questions, collaboration, and the risk of concurrent overwrite
- Lock-modify-unlock and copy-modify-merge models
- The Subversion study-path rationale and conflict, working-copy, and locking quiz answers
- https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Branches-in-a-Nutshell
Supports
- Branching as divergence from the main line
- Git commits as snapshots with parent relationships and Git branches as pointers
- The branch study-path rationale and branch quiz answer
- https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Branching-Basic-Branching-and-Merging
Supports
- Representative branching, merging, and conflict workflow
- The merging study-path rationale and conflict quiz answer
- https://www.mercurial-scm.org/guide
Supports
- Mercurial workflow examples for initialization, adding files, recording a changeset, and viewing history
- The Mercurial study-path rationale
- https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-What-is-Git
Supports
- Git's snapshot-oriented implementation, local operation, and file lifecycle
- The Git implementation study-path rationale
- https://git-lfs.com/
Supports
- Git LFS text pointers in Git and large file content stored on a remote server
- Large-file limits in Git examples, the Git LFS link rationale, and the large-file quiz answer
- The Git Large File Storage awesome-link rationale
- https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
Supports
- Discovery of the Git Add-ons awesome list as a curated source for Git ecosystem tools
- https://github.com/stevemao/awesome-git-addons
Supports
- Curation of Git Extras and diff-so-fancy as Git command-line add-ons
- The Git Extras and diff-so-fancy awesome-link selection
- https://github.com/tj/git-extras
Supports
- Git Extras utilities for repository summaries, changelog population, author statistics, and documented command examples
- The Git Extras awesome-link rationale
- https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy
Supports
- diff-so-fancy human-readable Git diff output and Git pager or interactive-diff configuration
- The diff-so-fancy awesome-link rationale