What is Git?
By far, the most widely used modern version control system in the world today is Git. Git is a mature, actively maintained open source project originally developed in 2005 by Linus Torvalds, the famous creator of the Linux operating system kernel.
Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
Git is a version control system that allows you to track changes to files and coordinate work on those files among multiple people. It is commonly used for software development, but it can be used to track changes to any set of files.
With Git, you can keep a record of who made changes to what part of a file, and you can revert back to earlier versions of the file if needed. Git also makes it easy to collaborate with others, as you can share changes and merge the changes made by different people into a single version of a file.
What is Github?
GitHub is an online software development platform. It's used for storing, tracking, and collaborating on software projects.
It makes it easy for developers to share code files and collaborate with fellow developers on open-source projects. GitHub also serves as a social networking site where developers can openly network, collaborate, and pitch their work.
What is Version Control? How many types of version controls we have?
Version control, also known as source control, is the practice of tracking and managing changes to software code. Version control systems are software tools that help software teams manage changes to source code over time.
It allows you to revert files back to a previous state, revert the entire project back to a previous state, compare changes over time, see who last modified something that might be causing a problem, who introduced an issue and when, and more.
Types of Version Control Systems:
Local Version Control Systems
Centralized Version Control Systems
Distributed Version Control Systems
Local Version Control Systems: It is one of the simplest forms and has a database that kept all the changes to files under revision control. RCS is one of the most common VCS tools. It keeps patch sets (differences between files) in a special format on disk. By adding up all the patches it can then re-create what any file looked like at any point in time.
Centralized Version Control Systems: Centralized version control systems contain just one repository globally and every user need to commit for reflecting one’s changes in the repository. It is possible for others to see your changes by updating.
Distributed Version Control Systems: Distributed version control systems contain multiple repositories. Each user has their own repository and working copy. Just committing your changes will not give others access to your changes. This is because commit will reflect those changes in your local repository and you need to push them in order to make them visible on the central repository. Similarly, When you update, you do not get others’ changes unless you have first pulled those changes into your repository.
Why we use distributed version control over centralized version control?
Centralized version control is easier to learn than distributed.
DVCS has the biggest advantage in that it allows you to work offline and gives flexibility. You have the entire history of the code in your own hard drive, so all the changes you will be making in your own server or to your own repository which doesn’t require an internet connection, but this is not in the case of CVCS.
DVCS is faster than CVCS because you don’t need to communicate with the remote server for each and every command. You do everything locally which gives you the benefit to work faster than CVCS.
Working on branches is easy in DVCS. Every developer has an entire history of the code in DVCS, so developers can share their changes before merging all the ‘sets of changes to the remote server. In CVCS it’s difficult and time-consuming to work on branches because it requires to communicate with the server directly.
If the project has a long history or the project contain large binary files, in that case, downloading the entire project in DVCS can take more time and space than usual, whereas in CVCS you just need to get few lines of code because you don’t need to save the entire history or complete project in your own server so there is no requirement for additional space.
If the main server goes down or it crashes in DVCS, you can still get the backup or entire history of the code from your local repository or server where the full revision of the code is already saved. This is not in the case of CVCS, there is just a single remote server that has entire code history.
Merge conflicts with other developer’s code are less in DVCS. Because every developer work on their own piece of code. Merge conflicts are more in CVCS in comparison to DVCS.
In DVCS, sometimes developers take the advantage of having the entire history of the code and they may work for too long in isolation which is not a good thing. This is not in the case of CVCS.
