Realizations That Helped Me Understand Git


This is unlikely to help you understand git, but I've been surprised before.

  • Git doesn't have an inherent concept of diffs (though stuff may be stored internally that way for efficiency). Every commit can be thought of as a static snapshot of your project. Diffs are computed on the fly.
  • Git is a content addressable filesystem. Basically a hash table with signature {commit ID: Filesystem state at that ID}. All operations are computed from that basic data structure.
  • Commits know their parents but not their children.
  • Tags and HEAD are just pointers.
  • Being careful about what you commit in what order will save you a lot of pain and rebasing.
  • A lot of Git's commands are named surprisingly well iff you know its data model.
    • Pickaxe is still a stupid name.
  • Being able to visualize a DAG changing and where you are on it is what made all the difference.
  • Git still isn't easy to use. I can never put it in the back of my mind.

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