What is Git? The ultimate guide to Git's role and functionality

Git is a must-have tool in the world of modern software development. In this comprehensive guide, we explain in detail what the Git tool is, its role in source code versioning, and how it works. Whether you're a beginner or an expert, this guide will give you a deep understanding of Git and its many features.

What is Git?

Git is a source control tool that has quickly become a must-have in the software development ecosystem. Git's ability to meticulously track project changes makes it an essential tool for developers aiming to efficiently manage their projects. Therefore, mastering Git has become a vital skill for anyone aiming to excel in the field of software development.

What is version control?

Version control enables you to track changes to a software's source code. Thus, a software's delivered version consists of a set of specific versions of each of its components and source code files. For example, an icon might have only been changed twice, while a code file might have undergone several dozen changes over time.

What are Git's features?

In development, maintaining rigorous management of changes to a software's source code is important. Without this, ensuring the consistency and reliability of development teams' work is impossible. Fine-tuned change management can also make it easier to identify the source of a problem. Similarly, it reduces the risk of conflicts and file overwriting. Indeed, Git facilitates and streamlines software versioning precisely for this purpose.

To better understand Git and how it works, below we've outlined some of the key features that make it easy to optimize source code management as well as collaboration across teams.

Visualization of your project history

In the software development ecosystem, the commit history is a core pillar for tracking project progress on Git. That's why Git offers developers a detailed history of all changes made to the
source code.

For each new commit, the following are recorded:

• specific changes made to project files
• an explanatory message from the developer who made the change

These elements help improve the development team's communication and mission, allowing them to more quickly understand the ins and outs of each change made to the code.

In addition to monitoring project developments, this history allows you to go back if necessary, cancel part of the changes or, conversely, fetch only part of the changes from one branch to another. This function therefore plays an essential role in maintaining the transparency, consistency, and quality of a project's source code in Git, as well as collaboration within the development team and operational efficiency to solve problems.

Check out our tutorial on how to create your first Git commit.

Greater autonomy for teams

Another essential feature of the Git tool is distributed development. Thanks to its decentralized structure, Git allows development teams to work simultaneously on the same project. Each team member has their own copy of the project, where each of their changes can be versioned. This allows them to work autonomously on specific features while reducing conflict or overwriting risks. This approach offers great flexibility for developers who can then explore different ideas or experiment with new features without interfering with their colleagues' work.

Distributed development also enhances resilience to server failures. Thus, even in the event of a failure, each person has a copy on which they can continue to work offline. Changes can then be synchronized once the server is available again, thereby reducing the risk of work disruption for development teams and update constraints for operational teams.

Optimizing development workflows

One of Git's most powerful features is the ability to manage branches and their mergers (branching and merging). These allow teams to work in parallel in a collaborative and organized way. Each new code addition or bug fix can be independently developed and tested to ensure reliability. Developers can then simply merge changes into the project's main branch.

By adopting this approach, teams can track code evolution, collaborate easily and efficiently, reduce conflicts between different versions, and ensure continuous integration of developed features.

Using these two features, teams can develop projects continuously and in an agile manner while regularly deploying new code versions. This practice greatly facilitates change management while reducing the risk of errors.

What are Git's benefits?

To thoroughly understand Git, it's important to fully recognize the benefits it offers to your development teams:

• Decentralized version management: With Git, each developer has a complete copy of the project history, allowing them to work independently.
• A tool designed around security: Unlike other source control tools, Git was designed from the outset to ensure the integrity of all elements of the repository with a cryptographic Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA1 and SHA-256 to date). This algorithm aims to protect the project's code and history from any modifications, whether malicious or not. In addition, each commit (creation of a new version) can be automatically signed (GPG) to ensure change traceability. This makes Git a particularly safe and secure tool, which guarantees the integrity and authenticity of your source code and its history.
• A fast and effective tool: The Git tool has been designed to maximize efficiency during development. Its speed allows developers to perform complex operations, such as commits, branching, and merging, in minimal time, even on large code bases. It also ensures a minimum fingerprint on the hard disk and during network exchanges. This efficiency then translates into rapid response times during backups, consultations, and project history changes.
• Greater work flexibility: Git supports a wide variety of development workflows. Whether you prefer centralized development models or more linear approaches, Git adapts easily. This ability to manage different workflows provides teams with numerous options for how they work.
• Ease of integration: Git excels in its ability to integrate with a wide array of existing development tools and platforms. The breadth of this compatibility allows teams to manage their projects more effectively by leveraging the best DevSecOps tools and practices.
• A widely followed open-source project: Another significant benefit of Git is that it's an open-source project supported by a dynamic and dedicated community which ensures its constant improvement. This active participation from individuals and companies in the Git community ensures the regular addition of new features and improvements through continuous updates.

What are Git's main commands?

The open-source Git project offers a wide variety of commands to make teamwork easier.
Here are some of the most commonly used commands.

• git init: Initialize a new Git repository.
• git clone [url]: Clone an existing repository.
• git add [file]: Add a file to the index.
• git commit: Validate changes made.
• git commit -m "message": Validate changes with a message.
• git status: View the status of files in the working directory.
• git push: Send changes to remote repository.
• git pull: Fetch changes from the remote repository and merge them with the local repository.

While these commands are essential to getting started with Git, it's important to note that there are plenty of other commands. See the list of Git commands.

Git and GitLab

GitLab is a collaborative open-source development platform covering all stages of the DevSecOps lifecycle and providing a Git server for efficient team collaboration.

Beyond source code management, GitLab offers a complete suite enabling continuous integration and distribution, deliverables management, security and incident management, as well as all associated traceability, real-time task planning and tracking, deployment monitoring, software versioning, and the associated document space.

Git FAQs

Why use Git?

Git is all about efficiency. Git's decentralized system based on branching and merging features allows development teams to work on the same project without interfering with others' work or, more importantly, creating version conflicts.

Is Git software?

Git is an open-source project. Therefore, it's free and open to everyone. However, you need to install Git on your device before you can start working.

What is a branch in Git?

In Git, a branch is a pointer to a change history. Thus, each main branch points to the last commit performed on it. It is therefore possible to have many parallel branches, each with its own history but the same root.

What is a commit?

In Git, a commit is a record of changes to a software's source code. Each commit is accompanied by an explanatory message that traces the history of all changes. This makes project tracking easier, and there's always the option to revert to earlier, functional versions if there's a problem.

What is the benefit of branches in Git?

Developing features in branches allows developers to work simultaneously on several distinct features. In addition, this avoids compromising the main branch with unstable code. Moreover, implementing branches in Git is significantly more lightweight than in other version control systems.