Manage code with Git¶
To gain better control over your source code, it is usually managed with Git. Git is a mature and very actively maintained open source project originally developed in 2005 by Linus Torvalds, the initiator of the Linux operating system kernel. Git can be combined well with many operating systems and IDEs.
With its distributed architecture, Git is an example of a DVCS. This means that the entire version history no longer has to be in a single location, as was common with previously popular version control systems such as CVS or Subversion (SVN). In Git, each local repository can contain specific changes.
However, Git can not only be used in a distributed way, it is also performant, secure and flexible.
Performance¶
Git is very fast compared to many other version control systems in committing changes, branching and merging, and comparing with previous versions. This is also necessary when we look at the Linux kernel repository with over a million commits. Git is not oriented towards file names, but focuses on changes in content so that files can be efficiently renamed, split and rearranged. Git achieves this by storing deltas for the differences in content, metadata of the files and compression.
The distributed version control system also ensures that, for example, implementing a new function does not require network access to a remote server, thus avoiding delays. You can also carry out error correction locally on an earlier version. Later, both changes can be transmitted to a central server with a single command.
Security¶
The integrity of managed source code was a high priority in the design of Git. For example, the relationships between files and commits are protected by a hashing algorithm (SHA1), making accidental or deliberate changes more difficult and ensuring the actual history.
Flexibility¶
Git not only allows for very flexible workflows but is also suitable for both large and small projects on different platforms.
Criticisms¶
A common criticism of Git is that it is difficult to learn: either large parts
of the Git terminology are new or in other systems terms have a different
meaning, such as for example revert in SVN or CVS. Git also offers a lot of
functionality, but it takes some time to learn.
Read more¶
See also
Essentially, in this tutorial, I show on the one hand how Jupyter Notebooks can be managed with Git, and on the other hand best practices and typical Git workflows.