Git : The Introduction

Photo by Pankaj Patel on Unsplash

Have you ever start wondering what the heck is Git and why is everyone talking about it ? Do you often see posts on social media and groups about git and say “ yeah , i should someday learn about git ’’ ?
Git ? GitHub ? GitLab ? What is this mess ?

Well , don’t you worry dear ENSIASte , because in next few minutes , you’ll be able to know The What , Why & How of Git so you can flex on your friends too :)

So what is Git ?

Git is Version Control System (VCS) , a piece of software that helps you track and manage different versions of our project .

Let me explain what this means , but first let us define first what’s a project ?
A project can be defined ( in my opinion ) as solution to a problem , a solution that covers a need and this solution is simply a bunch of features ( or functionalities ) .

So when you’re building your software , you start adding one feature after another , it’s more like the 1st feature is version 1 of your project , once you add another feature , it becomes version 2 and here comes Mr Git and start tracking the different versions( 1 & 2 ) of you project , so you can swing back and forth between them easily .

Git , In a nutshell , is a record where you can save different versions of your projects .

Why Git ?

Now that you have an idea about Git , we can talk a little bit about why it is important for you to learn it .

1. Professional jobs and career .
   According to the latest StackOverFlow Insight , more than 80% of professional developers use Git . It is commonly used in both commercial and open-source software development .
   If you ever get a job or an internship , you will almost definitely be using Git on a daily basis in order to keep track of the project you’re working on .

Story Time :
A friend of mine once was an intern in a company , he was given a certain job to do and after he finished , he copied the folder on a USB and went to his boss with a red face ( b wjho hmer ) to give him the USB stick with a big smile :D .
His boss started laughing , lucky for him he didn’t get fired HHHH .

1. Team Efficiency .
   Git will incredibly make your you team work easier , as you can see the entire timeline of different versions of the code . It gives the ability to observe changes , history , new features and progression of your team mates in one place .
   Using branches ( which i will talk about later on this article ) , you can safely change anything in the code without the risk of screwing up the production . This allows synchronization of the code between different people , This so OP right ? :D
2. Contributing to Open Source .
   Github (i.e Gitlab, Bitbucket …) is a code hosting platform using version control with Git , it allows you to host your project on the cloud , as well as getting involved in other open source projects . It is indeed a great way to show you coding skills and prove to recruiters your competence , specially if you’re a self-taught.

How to Git ?

Before diving in git commands , we need to understand first a few key concept about Git .

1. Repository
   Repo is just a fancy way to say folder or directory ( another fancy way to say folder xD ) , but not any folder . It’s that big folder that you named “ Projet X ” in your desktop , containing all files and images and ( you name it ) that you used in your project .
   So basically your Github profil is a set of repos , one repo per project .
2. Branch

Branching is one of the amazing features that Git offers , let’s tackle this by an example : let’s say that you work with a company and your boss told you that to fix some bug in a project , alright ?
You’re not going to stop the whole production just for that , aren’t you ?
That is going to cost the company so much , specially if it’s a high caliber company , we’re talking about thousand of dollars or even millions ( no body f*cks with the money , you know … )
So what you can do ( thanks to git ) is to create a “virtual environment” , where you can experiment new things without the risk of affecting the original code , this VE ( virtual environment ) is called a branch , it’s an isolated copy of the whole code . So after finding the bug ( in our example ) you can merge the two branches ( the original and the one you just created ) into one branch and all the changes will be applied .
Yaaay … Git is so OP ! right ?
Side note : By default , the main branch that comes with a new repo is called master branch and then you can create as many secondary branches as you wish .

3 . Commits

When we say we’re committed to something , it means that we’re sure and absolutely positive about it . Same thing here , when you commit a branch , you save all the changes you’ve made and git creates a unique ID (called “hash ”) that allows you to keep record of the specific changes commited along with who made them and when and an optional brief description .

Dear ENSIASte , i am happy announce to you that , now , in this moment , you’ve learned the vocabulary that you need to get started with git .
The rest now is just a bunch of commands , how to do this and that , nothing to worry about my friend , i got you covered .

How to use Git for Moroccans

About this part , i couldn’t find a better non-boring tutorial other than Yasser Douslimi ’s gist , Enjoy :D .

Initializing a git repo

git init

Hadi dima kadar flowal bash git i9ad lik l omor flowal fash kat creer dossier

Connecting to remote repo

git remote add origin <LINK DIALAK>

Hada hoa liki 3tik t copyih ya ima f github wla gitlab wla bitbucket

Pulling your project from github

git pull origin <L BRANCH>

Normallement katkon l branche dialak master walakin t9ad tkon smitha likan

Adding files to stage ur commit

git add <file path>

t9adi diri add * bash t ajouter ga3 les fichiers

Commit your changes

git commit -m "shi message kima kan"

hadak l message hoa le but dial changement dialak

pushing ur changes to remote repo

git push origin <BRANCH>

normallemnt l branch kikon master

Creating a branch

git checkout -b SMIYA

hadi kat creer l branch o kat switchi lih en meme temps b dik -b

Cloning a repo

git clone <Repo link>

l far9 mabin clone o pull hoa anak la cloniti katakhod les fichiers 7arfyin ama git pull katkon nta engagi fl project

(When u first install git) Signing in to remote repo

git config user.name <smitak>
git config user.email <email dialak>

I’ll leave this here 😊

Yay … you’ve made it till here , i am so happy that you stayed with me until the end !
I hope you find this article helpful , i really appreciate your time .

That’s it !
BIG SPECIAL THANKS to Yasser Douslimi for the last session of the IT Training Cell about Git , we’ve learned a lot from him and he is the reason that i wrote this article .

MAY WE MEET AGAIN :D