Git is a Version Control System (VCS) for tracking changes in a set of files.
A VCS helps you to:
- Coordinate work between multiple developers across teams.
- Keep track of changes in files.
- Keep track of who made what changes and when.
- Revert to any point in the past.
Git is the most popular VCS in the market today and outranks its closest competitor by a huge margin. It can be used to store and track changes in simple html files to the most complex programming languages.
Git is independent of a framework or a programming language.
Git History
Git is an open source VCS developed in 2005 by Linus Torvalds – the creator of Linux operating system.
Beginners to Git often ask, what is the full form of Git?
The short answer is, Git is NOT an acronym.
In an interview, when asked why Linus called the new software, “git”, British slang meaning “a rotten person“, he said in his characteristic humor, “I’m an egotistical bastard, so I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git.”
Since the launch, Git has steadily soared in popularity. When Github launched in Apr 2008, it gave Git the major push and slowly Git became the #1 VCS loved by developers from small to large enterprises.
Here is the graph of popularity of various VCS measured since 2004 to July 2024.
The blue line above has been on the way up since the launch of Github. At one point, Subversion (SVN) used to be the most popular VCS. However, with the new approach towards version control and by overcoming the flaws of its predecessors, Git soon out-numbered its competitors.
Getting the basics of Git right is extremely important. Beginners tend to dive directly into the commands rather than understanding how Git works and end up being confused. Make sure you go through the next set of tutorials to ensure a good start.