Git for Humans

WE’VE TALKED A LOT SO FAR about “versions”—but what is a version, really? Webster defines it as “a particular form of something, differing in certain respects from an earlier form or other forms of the same type of thing.” That is, versions can be sequential or iterative—representing the form of a thing as it changes over time—or they can differ in, well, some other way. The point is that a version isn’t just a copy of a thing, but a copy that differs or has changed in some respect from some other copy.

In Git, sequential versioning—tracking the difference between a snapshot of your work and its earlier forms—is one of ...