If you’re still perplexed by git even though you’ve been using it for years, this zine is for you!Git has a bad reputation: it’s easy to accidentally lose your work or put your repository into a difficult-to-recover state, the terminology is arcane (detached HEAD state? reference? fast-forward? remote-tracking branch?), and the man pages are legendary for how inscrutable they are.It’s no surprise that many people stay in their comfort zone: you might have a set of 6 git commands that work for you, and hope that nothing goes wrong.But my experience is that after learning how git’s design choices work, it’s way easier to: confidently handle diverged git branches, so you can work with others with no stress recognize bad git situations, so you can quickly get out of them and move on understand git’s underlying logic, so that messages like “you’re in detached HEAD state” are totally routine to deal with know how git stores your history, so when you lose a commit you can always get it backThis zine explains git’s core concepts (commits! branches! merging! remotes!) with minimal jargon and a focus on the actual problems that can ruin your day. What does fast-forward failed mean? What’s “detached HEAD state” and what are you supposed to do about it? Why do commits sometimes get lost, and how can you get them back? If you're still perplexed by git even though you've been using it for a long time,this zine is for you. git, represented by a box with a smiley face: "you're up to date with origin/main" doesn't actually mean you're up to date with the remote main branch... nonplussed looking little bald stick figure, thinking: ?? This zine's goal is to take you from: baffled stick figure with spiral eyes and a wavy-line mouth: fast-forward failed?? detached HEAD state? references? what? to confident, smiling stick figure: silly git, you can't faze me with your arcane error messages! I know exactly what to do. Once you know what's going on under the hood, you can get yourself out of any git mess. let's go learn! (surrounded by smiley faces) commits meet the commit - 4 inside the commit - 5 the diff algorithm - 6 the staging area - 7 branches meet the branch - 8 what's a branch? - 9 knowing where you are - 10 detached HEAD state - 11 references - 12 lost commits - 13 inside git - 14-15 merging meet the merge - 16 combining diverged branches - 17 merge conflicts (sad face) - 18 merge commits - 19 remotes meet the remote - 20 diverged remote branches - 21 fixing diverged remotes - 22 remote branch caching - 23 dealing with disasters losing your work - 24 git reset - 25 the reflog - 26
