Create a local git repository and get familiar with some of the essential sub-commands

1. Create a new folder on your file system and name it 'hello-world', then navigate inside

2. Within the 'hello-world' use the right git subcommand to initialize this folder as a git repo

3. Create a new file in this folder and name it 'hello-world.txt'. Open this file in VSCode and add some content to it, then save it.

4. Create another file 'my-poem.txt' and write an excepional poem (or not)

5. Use the appropriate git subcommand to 'stage' these newly created files (either individually or all at once)

Remember, use git status between git commands to get a sense of what you just did and whether you and git are on the same page.

6. Use git commit -m "<I_AM_GOING_TO_WRITE_MY_OWN_COMMIT_MESSAGE_HERE>" to commit your staged changes.

7. Use git log to confirm your commit was recorded

8. Create some more changes (any you want, new files or changing existing ones, git only cares that there are changes) and make another commit. Confirm again with git log

1. Use the appropriate command to create (and checkout) a new branch off of main called experiment

2. Make some more changes in this branch and commit them. Try to make at least 2 new commits in this branch.

3. Use git log to confirm the history of this branch

1. Use the right command to checkout main again. Use git log to confirm it doesn't contain any of the work on the experiment branch

2. Use the right command to merge the changes from experiment into main. Remember, the git merge <branch> command merges the changes from <branch> into the branch you are currently on, so make sure you are on main first!

3. Use git log to confirm all the changes have been integrated into the current branch

4. BONUS: if you got this far, try using the below version of git log to see a commit history view that helps with visualizing branching:

git log --oneline --graph

Ultimately Github will be the preferable tool for tracking such changes visually, but it's good to know a primitive version of this exists right within git.

Some important commands we learnt so far include:

• git init - make a new local repo

• git status - get feedback on the current state of your repo

• git add <filename> - add a specific file to git for staging

• git add . - add files to git for staging

• git commit -m '<message>' - commit staged files as a discrete unit of 'work' that git tracks

• git log - print the commit history

• git checkout -b <branchname> - create a new branch with the given name

• git checkout <branchname> - switch to the branch with the given name

• git merge <branchname> - merge the latest changes from the branch with the given name into the branch you are currently on