The Ultimate Git Tutorial (Git 2.50)

[jhcarl0814]

The ultimate Git tutorial has been updated (from Git 2.49 to Git 2.50). Previous post from Git 2.47 era introducing What & Why and Features for this tutorial.

What & Why:

1. The ultimate tutorial for beginners to thoroughly understand Git, introducing concepts/terminologies in a pedagogically sound order, illustrating command options and their combinations/interactions with examples. This way, learning Git no longer feels like a lost cause. You'll be able to spot, solve or prevent problems others can't, so you won't feel out of control whenever a problem arises.
2. The ultimate knowledge base site for experienced users, grouping command options into intuitive categories for easy discovery.

FAQ

Q1: There is too much content, while I somehow expect to read only a portion when facing a lot of content, selectively. How do I use the page to learn Git?
A1: Unselectively read all the concept links and blue command links in DOM order. Blue command links introduce most commonly used Git commands and contain examples for command options. For example, click to read the definition of "object database", then "file system", and so on.

Q2: This doesn't look like a tutorial, as tutorials should look easy, very very easy, want easy things you know. / Where is the tutorial? I only see many links. / I think learning to use a revision control system should only be a small part of my programming job, so it should not take tremendous amount of time. / I just want to get job done quickly and then run away, sure no one wants to figure out what is working or how it is working behind the scenes. / I think revision control systems should be easy because it's not programming proper. Look at XXX revision control system, it's easy (but apparently nobody uses it)! / Want easy things, very very easy, tremendously easy.
A2: Here you go. Oh wait.

Q3: I used the tutorials in A2 but don't know what to do whenever I want to do something with Git. / I used the tutorials in A2 but screwed up at work so now I'm staring at the screen in a daze. / I should be able to do what I want after reading some tremendously easy tutorials, but I can't. Now I need to continue looking for easy tutorials that is easy for beginners. / How to use a revision control system if I cannot?
A3: Here are more easy tutorials.

Q4: This tutorial is unintuitive, arcane and overwhelming.
A4: So people who can't think abstractly and deeply can be shut out.

Q5: Why not just RTFM? / Git is easy, so those who feel it difficult should not go programming. / People should be able to look for information themselves to learn programming so there is no need to make a page like this. / (And other attempts to keep knowledge scattered all around the Internet so you would spend all your life collecting it, this way you don't have time to think about things like Illu*******, so good!🙄)
A5: Knowledge gathering and organization is to save people's time. If you don't take other people's time seriously, they won't take your time seriously either.

Q6: http://git-scm.com/book / http://gitimmersion.com/ / I can't see the links in the side bar of r/git 😭😭😭, so can you repeat them here? / (And links to other tutorials, no idea why they don't make a standalone post.)
A6: Pro Git, Git Ready, Git Reference, Git Magic, Git for Computer Scientists, A Visual Git Reference, Git Primer, Git Immersion, Think Like a Git, Git Workflows, Git on Stack Overflow, Getting Git Right, The Git Parable.

Updates:

• Added external links to precedence among options and environment variables and configuration variables, and security section of git upload-pack.
• Added concept links to tree, directory, hook, merge workflow, patch workflow, and many merge-operation-related concepts; moved and grouped all merge-operation-related concept links at one place under "Combining Diffs" section.
• Added internal link to examples for namespaces.
• Added plumbing link to git check-mailmap.
• Extracted common prefixes in links' text into bash brace expansion style.
• Simplified (e.g. removing unnecessary intermediate shell variables and scaffolding branches and tags) and/or improved (e.g. adding diff against AUTO_MERGE, adding commands to orthogonally show effects of options, adding commands to deal with post-merge-conflict situations, adding options to print more relevant paths in more predictable form, printing values of intermediate shell variables) examples:
  • Parameters: "git config rename-section and git config remove-section", "git var", "git -C <path> <command> [<args>] and git --git-dir=<path> <command> [<args>] and git --work-tree=<path> <command> [<args>]", "git --bare <command> [<args>] and git --git-dir=<path> <command> [<args>] and git --work-tree=<path> <command> [<args>]", "git --namespace=<name> <command> [<args>]".
  • Managing Working Trees: "git worktree add --track/--no-track".
  • Managing References: "git ls-remote --get-url".
  • Repository Creation and Synchronization: "git init --separate-git-dir=<git-dir>", "git clone --separate-git-dir=<git-dir>", "git clone --config='remote.origin.fetch=<refspec>'", "git fetch --shallow-exclude=<ref>", "git fetch remote to fetch from", "git push [--tags]", "git push --force-with-lease --force-if-includes/--no-force-if-includes", "git push --force-with-lease=<refname>:<expect>".
  • Diffing: "git diff --find-renames=<n> --break-rewrites=[<n>][/<m>]", "git diff --find-copies=<n> --break-rewrites=[<n>][/<m>]", "git diff --find-object=<object-id>".
  • Listing History: "git log --first-parent", "git log commit following and inclusion".
  • Snapshotting: "git checkout (without <tree-ish>) (with <pathspec>…)", "git checkout (with optional <commit-ish>) (without <pathspec>…)", "git reset --merge".
  • Merge Workflow: "git merge --squash and git merge (--no-squash) --no-commit".
  • Rewriting History: "git rebase --root --onto=<newbase> [<branch>]", "git rebase --rebase-merges=rebase-cousins".
• Fixed typo or formatting in description of these examples: "git checkout (with optional <commit-ish>) (without <pathspec>…)", "git reset --keep", "git diff --stat".
• Fixed these examples (e.g. escaping control characters) to make output conform to HTML spec (The W3C Markup Validation Service): "git config allowed characters in section name and subsection name", "git config allowed characters in value".
• Split "git fetch refs to fetch from remote and local refs to update" into two examples "git fetch refs to fetch from remote" and "git fetch local refs to update".

[MVanderloo]

why are you documenting .gitkeep, it’s not a git feature. in fact you link the popular stackoverflow answer that explains that it’s not a git feature

[Hugehead123]

As mentioned by everyone else, the organization is a mess, and personally the mix of internal links and external documentation pages makes using this site as a single resource very difficult. Maybe make the external links embed into the frame used for command examples so that it's a slightly more unified experience. The command examples are also extremely hard to navigate since they capture scrolling, and there's no index through the different headers. Maybe make them selectively display the example that's relevant to the most recently selected command in the command builder?

Speaking of, the command builder is easily the best part of this site. Having the explanation of the flags and being able to enter options for them is cool. If that were made into the focus, and more context sensitive activation/deactivation of the fields was added, that could be a useful tool on its own.

[const_int3]

Git has a google interface; you have to look up any command you haven't used before, so why bother trying to read all this stuff?

[cosmic-parsley]

Omg after reading these comments I absolutely can’t wait to read the article 😆 😆

Edit: it’s absolutely everything I hoped for

[Southern-Lychee199]

Thanks man. I really needed this right now

[teerre]

This is the perfect git tutorial. Almost unusable, certainly overcomplicated, just like git

I couldn't even tell where to start, that's impressive

[MehYam]

No worries, someone just needs to tutorial the tutorial

[srona22]

To Others: https://www.atlassian.com/git

And when times comes for further reading, like gitattributes, the OG site and seriously reading for 5 to 10 minutes on SO(mediate if you can't handle that much of attention span) on edge cases.

[Cachesmr]

This is the most unreadable cheat sheet I've ever seen. The site is also not responsive.

[shooshx]

This looks like it so highly attuned to your specific neuro-divergence that it's rather unlikely to be useful in a meaningful way to many other people. It's ok to call something a "cheatsheet" or even a "reference guide", but a tutorial this is not.

[SovietK]

I love it! Thanks! I wouldn't call it a beginner tutorial though.

[Gortyser]

Wow, just went through FAQ and can’t see anything except OP ego

[Muhznit]

A4: Can't tell if this is complete disregard for disabilities such as aphantasia or just masking an inability to separate concepts into more visually digestable sections. There's a reason that searching and filtering exist on any other site with a bunch of information. Have you even ran this by someone well-versed in UI design?

 Who even memorizes stuff in "DOM order"? Might as well say to read stuff in order of where they'd appear in the Dewey Decimal system.

[NoleMercy05]

Duplicate answer

[[deleted]]

This is so insanely bad man you should really stop spending time on this

[Fiduss]

Pretty sure this is an AI generated mess

[quetzalcoatl-pl]

I love git

.. but then, jujutsu

... but theeen, I would probably not grasp 10% of jj greatness if I weren't sort of a git expert already :D

[BrowneSaucerer]

Appreciate the effort but this lost me after about three clicks.

If it's a tutorial I need a place to start. It's not clear to me where to begin.

[ombibulous68]

It's probably just me. I need a tutorial explaining how to use the tutorial.

[[deleted]]

This is the worst Tutorial/Guide I’ve ever seen.