Introduction to GIT

Hello and Welcome to the Git Basics course.

Today, we'll be discussing about a tool that software developers swear by all over the world. Not just large multinational corporations, but even small companies and start-ups. As you might have already guessed from the name of the course, we'll be talking about Git

But, what is Git? Why Git? What makes Git so popular? We have the answers to all your questions. Just read on!

Git is a Version Control System (VCS), a tool which is an extremely smart choice to use even if it sounds too overwhelming. Simply put, a VCS is a group of files with monitored access. What does that mean? Let's consider a small example to help you understand.

If you are a graphic or web designer and want to keep every version of an image or layout (which you would most certainly want to), a VCS is a very wise thing to use. It allows you to revert files back to a previous state, revert the entire project back to a previous state, compare changes over time, see who last modified something that might be causing a problem, who introduced an issue and when, and more. Using a VCS also generally means that if you screw things up or lose files, you can easily recover. In addition, you get all this for very little overhead.

Many people's version-control method of choice is to copy files into another directory (perhaps a time-stamped directory, if they're clever). This approach is very common because it is so simple, but it is also incredibly error prone. It is easy to forget which directory you're in and accidentally write to the wrong file or copy over files you don't mean to.

Let's look at how version control can save our time and reduce stress in the next chapter.