Introduction
Imagine that 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 by using Git for version control. You already know a little bit about Git. You've used it to track your changes, fix mistakes, and collaborate with other developers through a shared repo and by using pull requests. However, you know that Git has even more to offer, and you're excited to learn!
You've already created a small website that you and your friends can use to practice Git by sharing pictures of your cats. You enlisted a couple friends who are software developers to help out.
As your project progresses, you want to make collaborating with your friends easier, so you can all work on features of the website without conflicts or wasted effort.
In this module, you'll learn what branches are in Git, how to use branches for development, and how to merge them, including dealing with merge conflicts.
Learning objectives
In this module, you will:
- Learn how branches work in Git
- Create new branches and switch between branches
- Merge branches together
- Learn basic techniques for resolving merge conflicts
Prerequisites
To work on this module, you should have a basic knowledge of working with Git, including:
- Terms like repository, working tree, and index
- Creating repos
- Staging and committing changes
- Resetting and reverting from simple mistakes
- Cloning repositories
- Pull requests
- Stashing changes
- Pushing changes and updating your repo by pulling