DEV Community: Jenna Toff

To Branch or Not To Branch?

Jenna Toff — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 14:05:15 +0000

As I’ve been learning more about development, and working with different groups of people: branches in terms of git are foreign concepts to many people, especially those just starting out.

Is branching necessary? No, not really. If you’re working on your own you can easily manage your own changes and just use the main branch. If you’re only pushing changes once you’re done with a section, it’s similar to merging a section of content. If you make a mistake somewhere, or other changes were made you can stash the changes you made and pull where you can bring back or disregard what you stashed. It isn’t the most ideal situation, but it works.

Why branch?

Branches are really great organizational tools. Theoretically you can create an unlimited amount of branches and use one for anything you’re working on.
Branches are segregated. If you’re working on a couple features at once, having different branches for each will allow you to work on one without any bugs from another effect your environment.
Great for working in teams: each person can work in their own branches and save Main for things that have been tested to work.

Branches are also good for use with Pull Requests (PR): request for code to be merged into the main code (or other branch in the repository).

If you’re working on a group project or in open source: owners are often the only ones that are capable of merging some changes into the Main. Collaborators can work directly with the repository but would need to use branches to stage their changes and make a PR to have them incorporated. If you aren’t authorized as a collaborator, you can fork the repository and make a PR from anywhere in your forked repository (the main, or a branch) to the original repository.

As you work with larger bodies of code, and with more people: using Git Branches becomes an even more ideal part of your workflow, and can actually become necessary to use. Try learning about using Git Branches early!

Branching Out (With Git)

Jenna Toff — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 14:02:36 +0000

When thinking of a branch: the first thing to come to mind is the part of a tree that is growing out from another part of the same tree. As a tree grows, branches are sent out from the trunk or from other branches. They grow leaves and help with supplying nourishment to the tree to become a better tree. When a specific branch dies, it might fall off or be pruned so another branch can grow in its place.

When it comes to git: branches work similarly. You have your trunk: but it's called Main (or Master if your repository was created before Oct 2020) that is the primary living portion of your code. You can create branches that copy the current Main code to allow you to build on it, make changes, and test things without effecting your live environment. Once you're done and successfully made changes, you can merge them into your Main. Branches can also be used to create other branches, and can be areas to merge other code into as well. After you're done with the branch, it can be deleted.

To get started with branches: there's a few common commands to learn:
git branch Will list all branches, with an indicator on which one you're on. (Depending on your system this can be a symbol or different coloring)

git branch <nameOfBranch> Will create a branch by the name of

git checkout <nameOfBranch> Will change your pointer to the branch specified at

Using git checkout -b <nameOfBranch> will create and switch you over to the new branch in one line!

git merge <nameOfBranch> will combine content of branch specified in with the branch you're currently on. In the case of changes in the same areas from when both points were at similar states, you'll be notified of a merge conflict where you'll either be directed to select which changes to keep or have to manually correct the conflicting area.

git branch -d <nameOfBranch> removes/deletes the specified branch. You do need to be on a different branch than the one you're trying to delete.

If you want to learn more about git branches be sure to check out additional documentation on branches. This includes different flags you can use, which can give more visibility to how you're displaying information about your branches, as well as extra things you can do!

Getting into Git

Jenna Toff — Sun, 09 May 2021 13:57:17 +0000

What is Git?

Git is a software that tracks changes across a set of files, and is used in coordinating work among programmers simultaneously working on different parts of the same project. Git manages changes that were made so you can return to a previous point of your code, save new things you were working on that you haven’t completed, and update what you’re working on with the changes someone else made, among many other things we’ll get into.

Why use Git?

Git is currently the most commonly used version control system.

In teams with multiple developers git will likely be used as it makes it easy to collaborate and merge changes.
If you work independently but not always on the same computer: it allows you to easily retrieve changes you made on your other system as well as keep track of when you did what.
You have the ability to go back to a previous version of the code in the case of changes you (or someone else) made ‘breaking’ the project.
Or marking what changes were made that broke it so you can focus on just what was changed instead of the entire code.
How to use git?

Before you can start using git, you will need to install it. Check out the documentation for details

After initializing git on a set of files, you’ll want to set up your files with a repository that can manage your code for you on a location that isn’t your device.

Using a remote repository will give you more freedom to collaborate with others, set up hosting for your code, and share your code for use or as a portfolio.

Generally you’ll find with git you’ll stage changes that were made and push them to update your main branch in the repository. When you have more things you want to work on or have additional people working on the same code base you’ll want to use branches. I’ll be writing more going over the specific commands and how to use them in more detail in later posts!

Remote Repository?

Repositories are central locations where data is stored and managed. Having locations other than your device will give you more protection to save your data in the case anything happens to your device.
With git, there are a lot of hosts you can use for the repositories: often at no cost. Some you might run into include:

There are also Self-Hosted solutions to host your repository including:

There’s no need to work with just one either. Try a few, and see what works for you. Git commands will be the same no matter which repository you use. Graphic User Interface (GUI) does change depending on what you’re using, but once you have a handle on one it will be easy to switch over to another host if you need (or want) to later.