What is Git and Why Should You Use it?

What is version control?

Version control is a means to manage your project’s files. For example, when building a website, you will have a lot of files, like CSS, HTML, JS, and images.

What is Git?

Git is the world’s most popular version control system.

Why Git?

Git maintains a complete history of the changes made to any project. It makes collaboration simpler and more productive, and it allows developers to work on multiple features at once.

Tracking history

Git keeps track of all the changes we make to our project.

Suppose you change part of the CSS, and the layout looks great, but a few months later, that change causes the layout to break in a few pages. Instead of having to remember what you changed a few months ago, Git would have a record of exactly which lines were removed/added/modified, which makes fixing the issue a lot easier.

Furthermore, you can revert changes with Git. Nothing is ever lost, and nothing is ever final.

Simple collaboration

Git makes collaboration in a team very easy, thereby increasing productivity.

Suppose you and a team member are working together on some HTML code. In a Git-less scenario, you would write your part of the code and email the file to them. Then, they would write their part and send it back to you.

However, while they are doing their part, you won’t be able to continue working on the code. If you do, you’d have to figure out what exactly your colleague changed when they do send it back to you, and somehow merge that onto your file with your new code.

This combing for changes and merging is not only tedious, but it’s prone to human error. Furthermore, the time spent doing so can be spent more productively on actually writing code. The good news is that Git manages these changes and merges them for you so you and several team members can work on projects simultaneously without ever having to worry about accidentally deleting someone else’s work or merging incorrectly.