Version Control with Git: Git Cheatsheets for Quick Reference

Key Points

Manual Version Control	Version control reduces mental clutter. Version control allows for easier reversion. Version control allows multiple people to work in parallel.
Automated Version Control	Version control is like an unlimited ‘undo’. Version control also allows many people to work in parallel.
Creating a Repository and Tracking Changes	Initialize a new repository with `File >> New Repository`. Changes saved in files get staged in Git. Once you’ve made and reviewed your changes, committing them takes a snapshot of your repository.
Ignoring Things	Ignoring files reduces visual clutter and makes you less error-prone. Groups of files can be ignored all at once, and you can make exceptions to those groups.
Remotes in GitHub	A local Git repository can be connected to one or more remote repositories. ‘push’ copies changes from a local repository to a remote repository. ‘pull’ copies changes from a remote repository to a local repository.
Exploring History	The GitHub website will show a list of changes, and show the differences between commits. We can download or copy from old versions of files.
Collaborating	Publishing a repository to GitHub lets multiple people work on it at once and keeps a master copy Frequent pushing and pulling keeps the copies in sync.
Conflicts	Conflicts occur when two or more people change the same file(s) at the same time. The version control system does not allow people to overwrite each other’s changes blindly, but highlights conflicts so that they can be resolved.

Git Cheatsheets for Quick Reference

A great printable git cheatsheet is available in PDF from the GitHub training website.
An interactive one-page visualisation about the relationships between workspace, staging area, local repository, upstream repository, and the commands associated with each (with explanations).
Both resources are also available in other languages e.g. Spanish, French, and more

Glossary

changeset: A group of changes to one or more files that are or will be added to a single commit in a version control repository.
commit: To record the current state of a set of files (a changeset) in a version control repository. As a noun, the result of committing, i.e. a recorded changeset in a repository. If a commit contains changes to multiple files, all of the changes are recorded together.
conflict: A change made by one user of a version control system that is incompatible with changes made by other users. Helping users resolve conflicts is one of version control’s major tasks.
HTTP: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol used for sharing web pages and other data on the World Wide Web.
merge: (a repository): To reconcile two sets of changes to a repository.
protocol: A set of rules that define how one computer communicates with another. Common protocols on the Internet include HTTP and SSH.
remote: (of a repository) A version control repository connected to another, in such way that both can be kept in sync exchanging commits.
repository: A storage area where a version control system stores the full history of commits of a project and information about who changed what, when.
resolve: To eliminate the conflicts between two or more incompatible changes to a file or set of files being managed by a version control system.
revision: A synonym for commit.
SHA-1: SHA-1 hashes is what Git uses to compute identifiers, including for commits. To compute these, Git uses not only the actual change of a commit, but also its metadata (such as date, author, message), including the identifiers of all commits of preceding changes. This makes Git commit IDs virtually unique. I.e., the likelihood that two commits made independently, even of the same change, receive the same ID is exceedingly small.
SSH: The Secure Shell protocol used for secure communication between computers.
timestamp: A record of when a particular event occurred.
version control: A tool for managing changes to a set of files. Each set of changes creates a new commit of the files; the version control system allows users to recover old commits reliably, and helps manage conflicting changes made by different users.