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Burke Holland
Burke Holland

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Git version control basics in VS Code

When you're first starting out as a developer, one of the big curve balls that gets lobbed right at your face is the concept of "version control".

I've been a developer for 17 years and version control is a struggle for me to this day. Sometime around 12 years ago, we all simultaneously decided to standardized on Git - which is a prolific, but objectively difficult to use source control management (SCM) tool. It's kind of like standardizing on English as a language for the entire world. Does a building burn up, or burn down? YES.

One of the things that Visual Studio Code tries to do is abstract some of that confusion away for you. There are certain motions that we make every day around source control that VS Code can handle for you. A typical flow might look something like this...

  1. Change a file(s)
  2. Stage your changes
  3. Commit with a message
  4. Push

VS Code is quite good at managing this workflow for you so you never have to drop into a terminal. Even after you get comfortable with using the git command line interface, you'll likely find that the VS Code flow is still faster because there's no context switching.

Check out this video on version control basics in VS Code.

You can do a lot more with Git in Visual Studio Code, and even MORE with GitHub. Visit vscode.github.com for 20 quick video tips that cover everything from how to change your diff view to how to create a pull request right from the editor.

Oh - and not only can you use GitHub from within VS Code, but you can also use VS Code from within Github...

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