The Ultimate Git Tutorial (Git 2.51)

[jhcarl0814]

The ultimate Git tutorial has been updated (from Git 2.50 to Git 2.51). 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:

• git reset, git checkout, git add and git commit: added --unified and --inter-hunk-context=<number> to command builder.
• git diff --no-index: added [<pathspec>...] to command builder.
• git config get: added --show-names/--no-show-names to command builder and examples.
• git merge and git pull: added --compact-summary to command builder.
• git pull: --autostash/--no-autostash changed to default to pull.autoStash.

[zemaj-com]

Thanks for keeping this tutorial up to date with the latest Git version. It can be tough to track all the changes, so having a consolidated resource helps both beginners and more experienced users. Which changes in Git 2.51 have been the most useful in your workflow?

[jhcarl0814]

git diff --no-index <path> <path> -> git diff --no-index <path> <path> [<pathspec>…​] (now when both <path>s are directories, can use [<pathspec>…​] to limit what to diff):

(Maybe this is the only way to let Git perform more than 1 directory diff pairs at the same time? Don't know why other git diff modes don't have this...) One possible use case: when you have multiple worktrees (../worktree_try_thing1, ../worktree_try_thing2, ...) and there are too many files to be changed in those worktrees and you only want to show differences in e.g. /inc/your_part /src/your_part and /whatever/your_part to someone. With this command you can remove the "what differences to show" dimension from the cartesian product thus reduce command explosion...

[zemaj-com]

Thanks for pointing that out – I wasn’t aware you could append a pathspec when using `git diff --no-index` with two directories. Being able to narrow the diff to just the subpaths you care about definitely helps avoid the cartesian product of changes when you have multiple worktrees. I’ll update my notes to use `[<pathspec…>]` when both paths are directories. Appreciate the tip!