Git Basics

Adopting best practices when using Git helps ensure that your codebase remains clean, understandable, and easy to manage. These practices are crucial for individual developers and teams working collaboratively.

By following these best practices, you can maintain a clean and organized codebase, making collaboration smoother and your project more manageable over time. Whether you’re working alone or with a team, these habits will improve your development workflow.

Commit Messages

• Purpose: Commit messages are essential for understanding the history of a project. A well-written commit message explains what changes were made and why, making it easier for others (and yourself) to follow the development process.

• Best Practices:

  • Be clear and concise: Write commit messages that clearly describe the changes you made.
  • Use the imperative mood: Start with a verb like "Add," "Fix," "Update," or "Remove," as if you're giving an instruction.
    • Example: Fix bug in login validation
  • Explain the 'why' if needed: If the commit isn’t self-explanatory, add a brief explanation of why the change was made.
    • Example: Refactor authentication logic to improve performance
  • Separate subject and body: If more explanation is needed, use a blank line to separate the subject line (first line) from the body of the commit message.

• Example:

  git commit -m "Add user authentication feature"

# or with a more detailed message:
git commit -m "Fix issue with login timeout
> Increase timeout to 10 seconds to prevent frequent session expirations."

Branching Strategies

• Purpose: Branching strategies help teams manage code changes in a structured and predictable way. They define how branches are created, merged, and used to develop new features or fix bugs.

• Common Strategies:

  • Feature Branching: Create a new branch for each feature or bug fix. Once the work is complete, merge it into the main branch.
    • Example: git branch landing-page
  • Git Flow: A more structured workflow with dedicated branches for development, features, releases, and hotfixes. It’s suitable for larger projects with scheduled releases.
    • Example: Branches like develop, feature/*, release/*, hotfix/*
  • Trunk-Based Development: Developers commit small, frequent changes directly to the main branch, often using short-lived feature branches.
    • Example: Continuous Integration (CI) tools are often used to test and merge changes rapidly.

• Choosing a Strategy: The best strategy depends on your team’s size, project complexity, and release schedule. Feature branching is common for small to medium-sized projects, while Git Flow is preferred for larger, more complex projects.

Frequent Commits

• Purpose: Committing frequently allows you to track progress, isolate issues, and collaborate more effectively. Small, incremental commits make it easier to identify what changed and when, simplifying debugging and review processes.

• Best Practices:

  • Commit small, logical changes: Each commit should represent a single unit of work, like fixing a bug or adding a new feature.
  • Avoid committing incomplete work: Try to ensure each commit leaves the project in a working state. Use branches for work in progress.
  • Commit often: Regular commits help you track your progress and make it easier to revert to an earlier state if needed.

• Example:

  • If you’re working on a new feature, you might commit after completing each logical step:
    • git commit -m "Add user authentication service"
    • git commit -m "Implement login form validation"