Exploring Git by Building My Own Minimal Version Control System

Rino Di Paola — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 19:10:06 +0000

I’ve used Git every day for years, but I realized I never really knew what happens behind the scenes. How does Git track changes? What does a commit actually store? How do branches and merges work internally?

To answer these questions, I decided to build my own minimal Git clone from scratch — a small, hands-on project I call GitLite.

Instead of just reading about Git’s architecture, I wanted to experience it: implement the core mechanics myself, experiment with commits, branches, merges, and see exactly how Git organizes its data.

GitLite supports a simplified Git workflow:

Staging files in a basic index
Creating commits that capture snapshots and history
Managing branches as simple pointers to commits
Switching between branches
Performing fast-forward merges
Inspecting commit history and repository status

The project is educational, not meant for real-world use. But building it helped me understand Git in a concrete, practical way — far beyond what tutorials or documentation can show.

I also documented every step, so anyone interested can follow along and try it themselves.

🧩 GitLite repository and documentation:
https://github.com/ironrinox/git-lite

If you’ve ever wondered how Git really works, this project is a hands-on way to explore it.

How I Built a Mini C Compiler to Understand How Compilers Work

Rino Di Paola — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 20:40:50 +0000

I’ve always been fascinated by how programming languages are transformed into executable code.

As a software engineer, I use compilers every day — but I realized I had never really understood what happens behind the scenes.

To change that, I decided to build a Mini C Compiler from scratch, focusing on learning rather than performance or completeness.

The goal was simple: understand how each stage of a compiler works — from lexical analysis to parsing and interpreting — and document everything clearly.

The project supports a basic subset of the C language and runs through an interpreter to execute the code.

While it’s far from a production-grade compiler, it gave me a much clearer picture of how real compilers like GCC or Clang are structured internally.

I tried to make the documentation as clear as possible so that anyone else interested in learning these concepts can follow the same path I did.

🧩 Repository and documentation:

https://github.com/ironrinox/mini-c-compiler

If you’re a beginner or a curious developer looking to understand compilers in a more practical way, I hope this project can be a useful reference.

DEV Community: Rino Di Paola

Exploring Git by Building My Own Minimal Version Control System

How I Built a Mini C Compiler to Understand How Compilers Work