Some thoughts about GIT

I have played with it for some weeks now, trying to make up my mind on GIT, and the result are encouraging. Usually I love or hate some new things at first sight, and GIT was one of those I loved. Now I can give some judgments based on real testing more than on first impressions.

GIT is the best version control system I have ever used.

I think that my statement is strong enough to provide my point of view, isn’t it? But why do I think it?

  • it is easy. I have started playing with it and few minutes later all my project were under it.
  • it is fast. A (huge) project commits in an eyebeat.
  • it is easy. Branching and merging are a childgame. No swearing, no problem for committing, no problems at all!

I did not have the time to test in big multi-user environments, but for what I can see playing with it is really what you should expect from a version control system.
For many users the lack of a good visual environment should be a weak point, but working from console is extremely simple and fast, so I do not really felt the need of a visual application.

Branching and merging are easy things, and the possibility of continuous commits to your local branch in order to maintain a concrete update log is something really useful. I have already moved every project I work on under GIT (sorry SVN, it was good as long as it lasted)  and I have to admit that it has been like I had always worked with GIT.

PS: try it, because it is worth the time lost, but be aware: you have to share its “Distributed” mentality, removing the “one place where every line of code is stored“.

You can get the OS X installer package here!