Pragmatic Version Control Using Git

1.7 Creating Alternate Histories with Branches

When I was a kid, one of my favorite book series was the Choose Your Own Adventure series.[4] Readers of these books will remember the way they work. You read a few pages and then make a choice. Does Joe enter the dark cave? If so, turn to page 42. Or does Joe turn around and leave the forest? If so, turn to page 23.

You can think of your repository like a book. You can read it from start to finish to get the entire story of your project. Branches are like the Choose Your Own Adventure books. There are multiple ways the story could go, each with a different history.

So, how do these alternate histories fit into your work with a version control system? Let’s say you have a few ideas to rewrite ...