What is Version Control?

Version control is a system that records changes to files over time so that you can recall specific versions later. It allows multiple people to work on the same project simultaneously without conflicts.

It allows you to:

• restore specific files to an earlier version
• Revert the entire project to a previous state
• Compare changes made over time
• Shows who last modified a file that may be causing a problem
• Helps identify who introduced an issue and when it happened
• Makes it easier to recover files if something goes wrong or files are lost
• Very little overhead

Git & other VCS

Most older systems treat a project as a collection of individual files and record changes made to each file over time.These systems stores only the differences introduced in each version.

Git views the project as a whole and records its complete state at specific moments of time.on every commit, Git captures a snapshot of the entire project, representing how all files appear at that point.

The three states

Git has three main states that your file can reside in:

• modified: you've changed the file
• staged: you've marked a modified file in its current version to go into your next commit snapshot
• commited: the data is safely stored in your local database

Git Workflow

The basic Git workflow consists of the following steps:

• Make changes to files in your working directory.
• Stage the changes you want to include in the next commit using git add.
• Commit the staged changes to your local repository using git commit.
• Push the committed changes to a remote repository using git push.

Key Features of Git

• Distributed Architecture: Every developer has a full copy of the repository, enabling offline work and faster operations.
• Branching and Merging: Git makes it easy to create, manage, and merge branches, facilitating parallel development.
• Data Integrity: Git uses SHA-1 hashing to ensure the integrity of your data, making it difficult to lose information.
• Speed: Git is designed for performance, handling large projects efficiently.
• Collaboration: Git supports multiple workflows and integrates with various platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket for collaborative development.