Introduction
Imagine you're a new software developer at a firm that writes avionics software for commercial airliners. Quality control is critical, and developers work in small teams using Git for version control. You've heard of version control, but you've never used Git, so you're eager to catch up!
You decide to learn Git by working through a hands-on exercise where you create a repository, make commits, explore history, and experiment with branches. But before diving head-first into Git, you must cover the basics.
In this module, you'll get an introduction to version control, and Git. Git can seem a little cryptic at first, and it can even be frustrating at times. But if you learn it step by step, you'll find that there's a reason Git is the world's most popular version control system—not just for software developers, but also for teams that write documentation and collaborate on other work.
Watch a video
For an overview of the exercise in this module, see the video Introduction to Git Recap.
Learning objectives
In this module, you'll:
- Learn what version control is
- Understand distributed version control systems, like Git
- Configure your Git identity and create a new Git project
- Make and track changes to code by using Git
- Work with branches to experiment safely
Prerequisites
- A GitHub account.
- Basic familiarity with using a command-line interface (CLI).
- A code editor, such as Visual Studio Code.