Git For Geeks

Tags: Git

Learn the core features of Git in less time for experienced software engineers new to Git

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 4.2

- Learn the key concepts of the Git source control system
- Step through the entire Git workflow
- Compare the different states in Git

What you'll learn

Learn the key concepts of the Git source control system
Step through the entire Git workflow
Compare the different states in Git
Manage files inside and outside the control of Git
Create and manage repositories on GitHub and BitBucket
Create branches and resolve conflicts with confidence
Save work in progress with Stashes
Mark special events with Tags
Even a bit of time travel within Git repositories

* Requirements

* Basic computer skills
* Ability to install software on your computer
* Admin rights may be required for software installation

Description

Git for Geeks

This course is designed to cut academic theory to just the key concepts and focus on basics tasks in Git in order to be productive quickly. Students can expect to learn the all the main features of Git in just two hours.

New! Closed captions throughout the course!

Course Outline

Course Introduction provides a welcome to this course with a few suggestions on how to get the most out of it. After that, we cover the minimum theory before getting our hands dirty with Git in the Core Concepts section.

Quick Installation provides an overview on the installation process for all tools needed for this course. A more detailed set of instructions are available in the Bonus section.

In The Basics, we walk through all the commands needed to start a new project managed by Git (or enable Git for an existing project) all the way through making commits, including common file operations like moving and deleting files. We also cover how to exclude the wrong files from accidentally being committed and how to review your repository's history.

We then go a bit deeper in the Advanced section when we cover comparing changes, branching and merging (including merge conflict resolution), tagging milestones, saving temporary work, and even a bit of time travel.

Finally, Going Remote covers publishing the locally created repository (previous sections) on GitHub and BitBucket. We cover the main concepts related to working with any remote Git repositories and compare the differences between the two most popular Git hosting services.

After the main part of the course, this course offers several bonus sections that explore some topics in more detail for those that like more information.

Course Features

Presentations provide audio/video training of conceptual ideas. Since few like slide-ware presentations, slide-presentations are kept to a minimum.

Screencasts provide a video of the instructor's computer system with any actions, commands, or screens displayed and narrated. Excluding bonus lectures, this course offers about 2 hours of screencast videos.

Several attachments throughout the course provide supplemental information, illustrations, or other reference material.

Who this course is for:

  • Anyone interested in using source control and specifically Git
  • Software engineers, developers, programmers new to Git
  • IT Managers or technical leads considering Git for version control on their team
  • Freelancers or other creative professionals

Course content

11 sections • 74 lectures

Course Introduction Preview 02:12

An overview of the topics that will be covered in this course, including Git basics, advanced Git, and going remote with GitHub and Bit Bucket.

Audience and Approach Preview 01:47

A quick guide to the general approach for this curse, including step by step demos that are short and focused using the command line. As well, it is recommended to follow along with all of the examples to maximize your learning.

Going Command Line Preview 02:18

A quick explanation of the reasoning for using the command line to start using Git, including new features hitting the command line first, online help being targeted at folks on the command line, the command line having more power, and the cross-platform nature of the bash terminal.

Core Concepts Overview Preview 00:27

An overview of the foundational aspects that will be covered in this section on the basic concepts in Git. This can be skipped if you already know what Git is and does.

What is Git? Preview 01:36

A quick overview of what Git is, a decentralized or distributed version control system that works off of local operations to allow it to be quick and large in scale. Git is considered de-facto for version control, making it widely supported.

What is a Git Repository? Preview 01:10

In Git, the collection of files being managed and all of their version history is considered the repository. Not everything in the folder has to be managed by Git, but the .git folder is what contains all of the versioning files.

How Commits Work Preview 00:50

Commits are snapshots of an entire repository, showing the changes between it and the previous state of the Git repository's files. These commits follow a timeline of events to get you from one point to the next.

Quick Installation Overview Preview 01:02

An overview of the way that this section lists out all tools to be installed in concise, slide driven installation guides.

Quick Install and Setup on Windows Preview 08:37

An overview of what we will need to install on Windows for this course, including Git for Windows, Notepad++, and P4Merge.

Installation Notes for Windows Preview 3 pages

Quick Install and Setup on Mac OS X Preview 06:18

An overview of what we will need to install on Mac OS for this course, including Git from Apple, TextMate 2, and P4Merge.

Installation Notes for Mac OS X Preview 3 pages

The Basics Overview Preview 00:42

An overview of the foundational commands that will be covered in this section, including getting information, creating a basic Git workflow, doing file operations, excluding files, and undoing mistakes.

Starting with a Empty Repository (git init) Preview 01:28

Creating a new Git repository on our local system using the command line interface with the command "git init".

Git States / Basic Workflow Preview 01:23

An overview of the three basic states of a file in Git, including working directory, staging area, and the repository (.git folder). This may also include the fourth stage, remote, which is a separate repository tacked on at the end to mirror the local side's final repository state.

The First Commit and the Basic Local Workflow (git add / git commit) Preview 03:04

Continuing with our demo repository by adding files and checking out the status of the repository using the "git status" command to build up to our initial commit.

Discover the Git Repository Preview 01:59

Understanding the inner workings of the Git repository by looking in and seeing what happens when the ".git" folder is removed.

Starting with an Existing Project (git init) Preview 01:56

Adding Git source control to an existing folder and files, recreating our Git project that we just started.

Going Deeper with Commits and Messages Preview 02:01

Adding new files before our initial commit on our newly created Git repository, using special characters to add multiple files at once.

Commit Log and Showing Commit Details Preview 01:16

Using "git log" to show the listing of commits that are part of this repository.

Combining Steps with Express Commits Preview 02:58

Editing an existing file that is currently managed by Git, in order to show how Git tracks modified files and how Git can add and commit these changes in one command.

Backing Out Changes in Stage and the Working Directory Preview 02:12

Backing out changes by reverting changes from our staging area and then reverting the changes entirely.

Git History and Creating Custom Git Commands with Aliases Preview 03:50

Using the Git log command to display an easier to read commit log history, before making an alias that will run that command without having to type the full command out.

Renaming and Deleting Files within Git Preview 03:08

Using Git to rename and delete files, which will keep track of the changes between renames and deletes.

Making Changes to Files Outside Git Preview 03:06

Using non-Git based commands to rename and remove files outside of Git in order to show how this messes up the Git history and to then show how to add the link back so Git can properly track the files.

Excluding Unwanted Files from Git Preview 02:56

Using the ".gitignore" file to exclude files that we don't want in our Git repository by using expressions to exclude files by extension type.

Advanced Overview Preview 00:35

A description of the more advanced topics that will be covered in this section, including comparing changes, branching, creating milestones, time travel, and more.

Comparing Changes (git diff / difftool) Preview 02:39

Using "git diff" to show differences between two commit points within our Git history.

What are Branches Preview 02:02

An explanation of what branches are, including diagrams of the most common types of branch resolutions, including fast forward, no fast forward, automatic merges, and manual merge conflicts.

Special Markers and HEAD Preview 00:37

An explanation of what special markers do, allowing you to access special points on the Git repository, such as HEAD, which is the most recent commit.

Branching and Simple Merging (Easy Paths) Preview 04:56

Creating and managing branches other than Master in our Git repository, then merging in those changes with the easiest path, a fast forward merge, finally deleting the branch we no longer need.

Manual Merges and Conflict Resolution Preview 04:50

Creating a conflict between branches and walking through the steps to use our merge tool to resolve the conflict.

Marking Important Milestones with Tagging Preview 02:38

Looking at adding tag onto specific commits in Git. This allows us to create tags to associate with commits in our history in order to mark out milestone builds for future reference with a lot more detail.

Saving Working in Progress with Stashing Preview 02:17

Saving progress in our current repository by stashing our changes to be able to unpack them inside a different branch, effectively moving the changes so we don't have to destroy them.

Repository Time Travel with Reset and Reflog (Undo Bad Commits) Preview 05:23

Resting to arbitrary commits using "reset" and using "reflog" to display all of those changes, before finally resetting our history to the current commit without losing any history.

Going Remote Overview Preview 00:58

Exploring the remote side of Git by looking at the two main hosting services BitBucket and GitHub.

What are Remote Repositories Preview 00:38

A quick explanation of what remote repositories are, basically a backup copy of your Git repository but on a remote service such as BitBucket or GitHub.

What is BitBucket? Preview 01:49

Bit bucket is a remote repository hosting service that can either be cloud hosted or hosted on a local system. The payment model is based on the number of contributors to private repositories.

Sign up for BitBucket Preview 01:31

Signing up for an account with BitBucket that we will use to create our remote copy of our local repository.

Remote Repository Creation Preview 00:53

Creating our first demo repository in BitBucket using the basic repository creation interface.

Establish Relationship Between Local and Remote Repositories Preview 03:05

Connecting the demo repository we just created on BitBucket to the existing project that we have on our local system.

Updating Remote Repositories (git push) Preview 02:45

Pushing the changes on our local repository to the remote BitBucket repository we just linked to the local repository.

Removing the Remote Repository Preview 01:01

Removing the remote BitBucket repository reference that we added to our local Git Repository.

Comparing Services: GitHub vs BitBucket Preview 03:01

Comparing the differences between GitHub and BitBucket. This comparison is out of date, as GitHub offers a fairly similar model of private repositories to BitBucket.

What is GitHub? Preview 01:17

A quick overview of GitHub, which is currently owned by Microsoft, no longer GitHub itself. As such, GitHub has lost some popularity in hosting open source projects.

Working with GitHub Preview 04:40

Signing into GitHub and creating a simple example repository, which we link to our local repository by pushing up our changes from our local side to the remote GitHub repository.

Cloning the Repository (git clone) Preview 04:16

Using GitHub to create a repository on the remote side before then cloning it down to our local system, in order to ease the process of linking the two together.

Update without Merge: Fetching Updates (git fetch) Preview 06:46

Looking over the differences between fetch and pull, where fetch only looks at the differences and updates the remote references and pulling takes those changes down and tries to integrate them to our local repository.

Final Words Preview 02:00

A quick overview of what has been covered in this course, and how it will help you to be a better developer by using source control.

Background Overview Preview 00:29

A quick overview of the background topics that will be covered, including a bio of the instructor, a brief history of Git, and comparing Git to other source control tools available.

About the Instructor Preview 01:13

A quick bio of Jason Taylor, the instructor for this course, who has had a lot of practical experience using Git on large productions.

A Brief History of Git Preview 00:48

A brief history of how Git was created out of necessity to support the Linux kernel project after a license for bit keeper was revoked.

Comparing Source Control Tools Preview 03:42

A quick comparison of the advantages and disadvantages between Git and the leading competitors, such as Mercurial and commercial offerings.

Installation Overview Preview 02:23

A guide to the programs that will be installed in this section, including Git for Windows, Notepad++, and P4Merge.

Git for Windows Installation Preview 05:37

Installing the versioning software Git for Windows onto our local Windows System.

Git for Windows Settings and Tweaks Preview 02:05

Tweaking Git for Windows to be more usable throughout the rest of this course.

Gitting Help Preview 01:10

Getting help on commands we are going to be using in this course by using the "git help" command to detail how to use things.

Minimal Git Configuration Preview 03:18

Setting up the minimal configuration needed by Git to get our Git for Windows setup working.

Notepad++ Installation Preview 05:18

Installing the text editor Notepad++ onto our local Windows system.

Notepad++ Git Integration Preview 04:40

Integrating our text editor Notepad++ with our install of Git for Windows.

P4Merge for Windows Installation Preview 05:35

Installing the merge tool P4Merge onto our local Windows installation.

P4Merge Git Integration Preview 04:13

Integrating the functionality provided by P4Merge into Git.

Mac OS X Installation Overview Preview 01:54

A guide to the programs that will be installed in this section, including Git from Apple, TextMate 2, and P4Merge.

Apple Git Installation Preview 01:07

Installing the versioning software, Git, on our local system using the command line utility provided by Apple.

Gitting Help Preview 01:03

Getting help on commands we are going to be using in this course by using the "git help" command to detail how to use things.

Minimal Configuration Preview 02:22

Setting up the minimal configuration needed by Git to get our Git setup working.

TextMate 2 Installation Preview 01:57

Installing the text editor TextMate 2 on our local Mac OS system.

TextMate 2 Configuration Preview 01:12

Configuring TextMate 2 to be more usable throughout the rest of this course.

TextMate 2 Git Integration Preview 01:21

Configuring TextMate 2 to integrate closely with our installation of Git.

P4Merge for Mac OS X Installation Preview 01:52

Installing the merge tool P4Merge onto our local Mac OS X installation.

P4Merge Git Integration Preview 04:02

Integrating the functionality provided by P4Merge into Git.

Mac Git Prompt: Make Your Prompt Like Mine Preview 03:34

Updating our terminal prompt to be more usable throughout this section by using a script.

Resolve Problem with MacOS Upgrade Breaking Git (new!) Preview 05:07

A guide to resolving the issue of Git not working after upgrading to a new version of Mac OS.

Bonus: Exclusive Student Discounts Preview 04:49