Greatest Hits of the Git Maintainers Room: 2016

When .git/HEAD is gone, git doesn't even think your repository is a repository. So really, we must fix this first or else we will not be able to use any git commands to salvage the rest.

Git for teachers

The best way to find branches I've recently used is to use the following command: git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate refs/heads/

git for-each-ref --sort='-committerdate' --format='%(refname)%09%(committerdate)' refs/heads | sed -e 's-refs/heads/--'

If you want a deeper explanation skip down to "The long version". ref~ is shorthand for ref~1 and means the commit's first parent. ref~2 means the commit's first parent's first parent. ref~3 means the commit's first parent's first parent's first parent. And so on. ref^ is shorthand for ref^1 and means the commit's first parent. But where the two differ is that ref^2 means the commit's second parent (remember, commits can have two parents when they are a merge). The ^ and ~ operators can be combined.

Git Basics So, what is Git in a nutshell?

Rule of thumb: When pulling changes from origin/develop onto your local develop use rebase. When finishing a feature branch merge the changes back to develop.

If Master has diverged since the feature branch was created, then merging the fea - ture branch into master will create a merge commit. This is a typical merge.

Git is revolutionary because it gives you the best of both worlds. You can regularly check in changes while prototyping a solution but deliver a clean history when you’re finished. When this is your goal, Git’s defaults make a lot more sense.

If you’re fighting Git’s defaults, ask why. Treat public history as immutable, atomic, and easy to follow. Treat private history as disposable and malleable. The intended workflow is: Create a private branch off a public branch. Regularly commit your work to this private branch. Once your code is perfect, clean up its history. Merge the cleaned-up branch back into the public branch.