Communicating Intent Through Git

Git is a distributed version control system for our source code. It provides the technical mechanism to answer the who, what, when, and where of every decision made. However, Git never requires us to answer why.

Software is the result of thousands of decisions. Add this feature; clarify this method; change this behavior. Every team should be able to know why a decision was made.

Creating software is a journey—let Git be your travel journal.

Transcript

1. Communicating Intent Through Git Josh Freeman @joshfreemanIO
2. Stories Have Power
3. Stories Have Power Local farming family murdered by military police; nephew, 21, sole surviver
4. Stories Have Power Nephew of murdered family leaves home to join separatist force
5. Stories Have Power Farmer turned pilot destroys key military facility
6. Stories Have Power Star Wars IV: A New Hope
7. “If that doesn't fix it, git.txt contains the phone number of a friend of mine who understands git.…” xkcd.com/1597 Why do we use Git?
8. Is Git a Communication Tool? Spoiler Alert: YES* *Terms and Conditions Apply
9. Software has Three Audiences The Author, the Team, and the Future Maintainers
10. Two Hard Problems In Computer Science Naming things, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors
12. whatthecommit.com
13. whatthecommit.com
14. whatthecommit.com
15. xkcd.com/1296 TODO: write meaningful commit message
16. Overcome your Commitment Issues
17. Overcome your Commitment Issues
18. Write imperatively in 50 characters or fewer The Summary
19. Provide a detailed message, keeping each line under 72 characters: Answer the following questions: - Why is this change necessary? - How does this address the issue? - What side effects does this change have? - References and resources The Message
20. ~/.gitcommittemplate
21. ~/.gitconfig
22. ~/.gitconfig
23. The Blame Game
24. The Blame Game
25. The Blame Thank Game
26. Oops
27. The Example
28. The Example
29. Searching the Log
30. The Example
31. Starting from Scratch
32. The Initial Commit
33. Add Something Highly Redundant
34. Commit in Kind
35. Change Several Things
36. git add —patch
37. Split
38. Yes!
39. No!
40. Yes!
41. No!
42. git diff —cached
43. Time to Commit
44. Round 2
45. Yes!
46. No!
47. Split Fails
48. Start Manual Edit Mode
49. Edit Mode
50. Edit Mode
51. git diff —cached
52. Commit
53. git add . && git diff —cached
54. Commit
55. git rebase -i 0964dd6~1
56. git rebase -i 0964dd6~1
57. Reword
58. git rebase -i 0964dd6~1
59. git rebase -i 0964dd6~1
60. A successful Git branching model nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model
61. Pull Requests Keep ‘em small and focused
62. Pull Requests
63. If a Picture is Worth 1000 Words A good gif is worth about an hour of billable
64. LICEcap is Your Friend cockos.com/licecap
65. Code Reviews
66. Take Away git add —patch git commit -m “Did stuff” Be excellent to each other
67. Thanks for Your Commitment! Josh Freeman @joshfreemanIO