Git for Teams

Chapter 5. Teams of One

Although this book is aimed at teams of more than one, there are often times when we are working as a team of one—a solo developer. This might be a personal side project, or you might actually be the only developer on your team. Working solo with no team constraints can be intimidating because there’s no one available to walk you through what you should do, or help you if you get stuck. In this chapter, I’ll show you how I do my work when I’m working on my own projects. Of course there are places where I get tempted to cut corners as a solo developer (after all, no one is watching over my shoulder, so who would know if I took a little shortcut here or there?). Where I can, I will show you the implications of those shortcuts.

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

• Create a local copy of a remote repository

• Initialize version control for an existing set of files

• Create a new repository from an empty project directory

• Examine the history of a repository via its commit messages

• Work with branches to isolate different streams of work

• Make commits to a local repository

• Use tags to highlight individual commits

• Connect your project to a remote code hosting system

If you are a creator (as opposed to a reviewer or manager), the majority of your time will likely be spent using the commands outlined in this chapter. Being able to work effectively with all of the tools outlined here should be considered a prerequisite to the remaining chapters ...