I Now Know How To use Git

11 May 2020 | ~2 minute read

A few days ago I wrote about how I have no idea how Git works. Since then, things have changed and I'm now basking in the warm orange glow of Git repositories.

What happened next?

After publishing the post about not being able to use Git, I re-posted it to Fosstodon (I'm all about the POSSE these days). I was half expecting some outrage and honest feedback about how I'm clearly an idiot.

That wasn't the case.

Instead I got numerous responses to help me learn, both on Fosstodon and via email. The community response was amazing and inspiring.

I decided that if the community can come to my aid and offer to help me learn, the least I should is get off my lazy fat arse and actually give learning Git a proper go.

That's what I did.

Learning Git

Ivan Tomica sent me a link to this brilliant website that reduces learning Git to simple, bite-sized pieces.

After 30 minutes I had successfully carried out my first commit and push from the Git CLI. I have to say, once the basics had clicked into place for me, the whole thing became much simpler to follow.

I've since been able to configure my local repositories to authenticate to GitHub using SSH keys. I've even been able to create a webhook that forces my web server to instigate an automatic pull (also via SSH) whenever one of my repositories are updated.

This means I can code changes to my theme or websites, do a git push and my they are auotmagically updated. No messing around with FTP.

Why didn't I do this sooner?

Conclusion

In my disclaimer I say the following:

My thoughts and opinions change from time to time; I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind.

This is definitely one of those occasions. Over the last few days my opinion of Git has done a full 180, and I'm now looking at other cool things that can be done with it.

I'm even exploring static site generators!

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