Version Control with Git, 2nd Edition

Preface

Audience

Although some familiarity with revision control systems will be good background material, a reader who is not familiar with any other system will still be able to learn enough about basic Git operations to be productive in a short while. More advanced readers should be able to gain insight into some of Git’s internal design and thus master some of its more powerful techniques.

The main intended audience of this book should be familiar and comfortable with the Unix shell, basic shell commands, and general programming concepts.

Assumed Framework

Almost all examples and discussions in this book assume the reader has a Unix-like system with a command-line interface. The author developed these examples on Debian and Ubuntu Linux environments. The examples should work under other environments, such as Mac OS X or Solaris, but the reader can expect slight variations.

A few examples require root access on machines where system operations are needed. Naturally, in such situations, you should have a clear understanding of the responsibilities of root access.

Book Layout and Omissions

This book is organized as a progressive series of topics, each designed to build upon concepts introduced earlier. The first 11 chapters focus on concepts and operations that pertain to one repository. They form the foundation for more complex operations on multiple repositories covered in the final 10 chapters.

If you already have Git installed or have even used it briefly, then you may not need the ...