10 Essential Git Things to Know: A Developer's Guide

Git serves at the very core of today's software development. It provides collaboration and a robust version history for every project. Here are some important Git things you need to know:

1. Commit Standards

It makes compliance with commit standards very important in maintaining a clean and meaningful project history.Each commit message should be short but meaningful, stating what has changed and why. In general, a good commit message is short, limited to 50 characters if possible, in its summary; it can also have a longer description when necessary. Consistent commit messages therefore make it easier for fellow developers to get an idea of the changes and, hence, perform code reviews or debugging.

2. Branching Standards

Effective standards of naming or creating new branches in a project introduces a structured approach toward parallel development. This comprises descriptive names of the branches, (e.g., feature/add-login, bugfix/fix-crash), creating branches for new features or bug fixes, and regularly merging changes back into the main branch. This basically isolates different streams of work, keeping down the risk of potential conflicts and helping in managing the development flow of a project.

3. Git Workflows

Understanding the various Git workflows will help you in picking the right one for your project. Two very popular workflows are shown below:

3.1. GitHub Flow

GitHub flow is a lightweight, branch-based workflow aimed at small teams and projects. It involves:

• Development in a new branch for every feature or fix.
• Committing changes in that branch.
• Opening a PR when the feature or fix is ready.
• Merging the branch into the master branch after approval.

3.2 Gitflow

Without doubt, sometimes one needs a more structured workflow, which may include larger projects with several releases. This will then include—

• A 'main' branch—production-ready code.
• A 'develop' branch holds the latest development changes.
• Feature branches: new features are introduced.
• Release branches: preparing new releases.
• Hotfix branches: urgent fixes on the 'main' branch itself .

4. Merge

Merging is a process of taking changes from one branch and incorporating it into another. This combines the histories of both branches – now every commit is related. Though conceptually simple, it can, in some instances, lead to conflicts that must be resolved by hand. Make sure to include changes from the main branch regularly into your feature branches to prevent such conflicts from happening.

5. Pull Requests and Code Reviews

Using pull requests for merging changes into the main branch, it facilitates peer reviews. Code reviews help maintain code quality, catch bugs early, and share knowledge among team members.

6. Stashing

Stashing is useful for temporarily saving your changes without committing them. This allows you to switch branches without losing your work. You can later apply the stashed changes when you're ready to continue.

7. Rebase

Rebasing is a form of merge that re-applies the changes of one branch on top of another. It creates a linear history: much easier to follow changes or differences introduced in every commit. Note that rebasing should be used carefully, especially on shared branches, since it rewrites commit history and thus might provoke problems for other team members.

8. Interactive Rebase

Interactive rebase will enable you to alter your branch's commits before introducing them into another branch. Doing this might be useful to clean up the commit history, such as squashing numerous into one, reordering, or altering their commit messages in general. It allows for curating a really nice and meaningful history of a project.

9. Cherry Picking

Cherry pick enables applying some particular commit changes from one branch to another. This is very useful in cases when you accidentally make some changes on the wrong branch, or if you would like to integrate just one special fix from one branch to another without merging all changes. It assists in keeping a precise and controlled manner on integration of changes.

10. Reflog

It's an incredibly useful feature that many developers are still unaware of. It keeps track of the changes in branch tips and allows one to recover lost commits or branches. In case you reset an important commit or branch by mistake, reflog lets you find the previous state and restore it. This powerful feature serves as a safety net in letting you undo mistakes and recover lost work.

Let me know if i missed anything, stay connected.