Lesson 2: Git and advanced Pelican features¶

Why do developers use Git?¶

A brief introduction to Git for beginners | GitHub Git is the most well-known version control system (though not the only one). Imagine having access to a file's entire history instead of just an "undo" command. You could check:

• who made a specific change
• what the file looked like n operations ago
• why the file was changed

Developers use Git to:

• track the history of changes in files
• access older versions of files
• collaborate with others on the same file simultaneously
• save multiple variants of the same project

Introduction¶

Opening our my-portfolio repository.¶

Creating a new branch and making changes on it¶

git branch "initial-website"

Creating a .gitignore file¶

The .gitignore file is used to specify files and folders that we do not want to share with others—such as cache files, secrets, or local settings. Changes to these files will not be tracked by git.

__pycache__

Here, we create a commit just as before. ### Merging changes into the main branch

Switch to the main branch:

git switch master

Merge changes from the initial-python-script branch:

git merge initial-python-script

Check the commit history:

git log

After a successful merge, the working branch is no longer needed, so we can delete it:

git branch -d initial-python-script

Reverting a change we don't want in the repo¶

git revert does not delete history. It creates a new commit that reverses the changes from a specific commit.

First, check the commit ID:

git log

Then, revert the selected commit:

git revert <commit-id>

Example:

git revert a1b2c3d

Useful extensions¶

• LiveShare - allows you to share your Visual Studio Code session with others and collaborate on a single file.
• GitLens - displays change history, code line authors, and commit information directly within the editor.