Git in Practice

Git in Practice is not a comprehensive guide of every single command and feature avail- able with Git. A book that covered this would be considerably longer than the one you find before you, and you’d learn a lot of unnecessary information. Instead, this book provides a detailed understanding of all the features of Git that are useful when you’re using Git to manage source code for software projects. I decided on the contents by looking at my Terminal shell history and prioritizing commands based on how much I use them. I also discuss workflows and best practices used in the real world to organize software projects when using Git. This book isn’t written for every software developer but, as an In Practice book, aims at the intermediate to advanced level. To get the most out of this book, you should be able to relate to or exceed the knowledge of one of these target readers: ■ Software developer who uses Git and knows enough to interact with a Git repos- itory but lacks understanding of any features beyond those provided by other version control systems ■ Software developer with advanced Subversion knowledge (able to branch, merge, and set/get Subversion metadata variables) who wishes to learn how to use Git ■ Software developer who wishes to learn Git best practices to contribute to open source projects on GitHub ■ Trainer with Git experience who wants to learn about more conceptual topics, commands they may have missed, and workflows, and who wants a resource to help coach others about using Git