Learn Git, Enhance Your Development Workflow

Coding alone on a project can be tricky. Coding with multiple people on the same exact lines can become a nightmare. Git makes the process go quite more smoothly. It’s without a doubt the most widely used code-controlling system. Control is what it’s all about, it changes the whole software development workflow. It’s not only relevant for developers, but also for other major business branches, like Marketing, HR, or Project Management. Using it as a centralized force behind business processes can create tangible value.

Distributed development.

But why is git the best control system right now? Well, other than the fact that it’s the most widely spread, it also chooses for a distributed development system. Essentially, this means that every developer in the team gets their own local repository, there is no need to work on a separate working copy of the code. This makes the workflow smoother and more importantly, it creates a precise full history of commits. The biggest alternative to Git is SVN. Unfortunately, SVN doesn’t quite offer the same service. This means you then need a network connection to create commits or to check previous versions of your files. Git ignores this difficulty, which makes it much faster.

Pull Requests

If you’re planning to centralize your repository (like Google or Facebook), you’ll need to communicate to others how you’ve pushed changes to said repo. That’s when you open a pull request. Collaborators can then review and discuss and add their own comments about how to merge those changes. A review page will be created, showing an overview of every change in the branch. Once everyone is happy with the changes, you can start merging what you’ve been working on. Pull requests are one of the most essential features Git can offer.

Not only for developers

It’s important to realize that Git is not only a tool for developers. It can truly impact every business branch. Marketing, customer support, human resources, budget, and product management, can all benefit from Git. For example, software development influences your hiring process. It helps to hire better engineers who know certain technologies and workflows, but it also draws employees and developers that have a true forward-looking philosophy. Even if Git has already been a major player in the system control market, it’s heading to be even more prominent in the coming years. Big companies like Microsoft have chosen to fully commit to Git.

Another example is how designers can benefit from Git. UX and UI-designers have more space to play around, they can easily see their changes without threatening all the existing functionalities. Easy-made prototypes can facilitate presentations to executives and managers. This is as true for big UI changes as it for simple icon changes. Pull requests also make the interface discussion process more effortless. Those requests are a new way of merging integrations under the same repository. Essentially, this creates a comment section for every branch, making revisions and discussions more straightforward. If you’re still not familiar with Git in 2018, do not panic. There’s still time to adapt your workflow and make it more agile. More importantly, you don’t have to be a master coder to understand how it works.

Interested in learning more about Git? Learn more about our personalized training and contact us: info@groupeneos.com

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