What is Git?

Git is a distributed version control system (or VCS), typically used to track files changes. It was developed in 2005 by Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel. Git’s primary use is to  keep track of changes within source code during the software development process. Source Code Management or SCM was the primary reason for its creation.

Git is not the only available VCS, but it certainly is the most popular ones. This is primarily due to it being a free, open-source, multi-platform, highly integrable, and relatively simple platform to use. In this article, we will learn a bit about version control systems and what Git and GitHub are. We will also review how they work together. At its core, a version control software allows us to  keep track of code changes. This way, we can see and evaluate the differences between multiple iterations or revisions of files.

Here is a typical use case. Let’s say we created a website and it’s working fine, even after a few updates! One day, we make some small changes to the site, and suddenly, it breaks. Typically, we would have to remember all the changes we made in the previous update. Then, go back and revert them all manually. Git, on the other hand, shows us exactly what changes we made including which files. This makes it much easier to track down the problem. We could also directly reverse the earlier changes and revert any updates which may have caused the issue. To accomplish this, Git uses repositories.

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