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christine
christine

Posted on • Originally published at christine-seeman.com on

Finding out how little you know about Git

I haven’t been a Git user for a long time, I have just been actively using it since January. That may not sound like a long time, but for a developer using a tool for over 5 months is almost as much as some projects take (if you are lucky) or as long as a contract is. Since switching from Java to Ruby, and moving to a new company who knows much more about this, I have learned how unsophisticated we were using Git.

We were on GitLab, using it with bash in a modified GitHub flow with a master and develop branches, all features were branched off of the develop. We did have merge commit messages, and had some CI/CD integration pulling in from a internet accessible GitLab to an internal GitLab. The switch from Subversion was done fairly easily, with some reorganization needed to switch up some of the repo structure (we went for a one-to-one relationship with all project == new git repo, but that made waaaaaay too many repos). So, I had been doing some Git, and now I have learned that I really don’t know how to do Git.

Did I know what a Git alias was? Nope. What about rebase, pushing with options, or forking a repo? Nope, nope and nope.

So I now I have a git alias (that I have to have pulled up in a notepad so I can remember all the commands) and have to be a lot more specific with my commit messages (they are a-ok for development but when you are ready for you pull request, squash those babies) and no more straight pull and pushing for me! I need to remember to rebase, rebase, rebase and for the love of all that is good don’t add in extraneous commit messages, make sure to amend. With all this changing of history I am doing, I am feeling like a time-traveler.

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Mark Lapierre

they are a-ok for development but when you are ready for you pull request, squash those babies

I guess this is the practice your workplace has adopted? I kinda prefer to see the changes that went into the final work. It can be helpful in identifying bad habits that lead to bugs.