17 Facts About Git

1.

Git is free and open source software for distributed version control: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development.

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2.

Git was originally authored by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for development of the Linux kernel, with other kernel developers contributing to its initial development.

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3.

Git is free and open-source software distributed under the GPL-2.

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4.

Git development began in April 2005, after many developers of the Linux kernel gave up access to BitKeeper, a proprietary source-control management system that they had been using to maintain the project since 2002.

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5.

Source code for Git refers to the program as, "the information manager from hell.

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6.

The core Git project has since become a complete version-control system that is usable directly.

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7.

Git's design is a synthesis of Torvalds's experience with Linux in maintaining a large distributed development project, along with his intimate knowledge of file-system performance gained from the same project and the urgent need to produce a working system in short order.

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8.

From this initial design approach, Git has developed the full set of features expected of a traditional SCM, with features mostly being created as needed, then refined and extended over time.

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9.

Git has two data structures: a mutable index that caches information about the working directory and the next revision to be committed; and an immutable, append-only object database.

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10.

Git is primarily developed on Linux, although it supports most major operating systems, including the BSDs (DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD), Solaris, macOS, and Windows.

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11.

JGit implementation of Git is a pure Java software library, designed to be embedded in any Java application.

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12.

Dulwich implementation of Git is a pure Python software component for Python 2.

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13.

Libgit2 implementation of Git is an ANSI C software library with no other dependencies, which can be built on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, and BSD.

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14.

JS-Git is a JavaScript implementation of a subset of Git.

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15.

Eclipse Foundation reported in its annual community survey that as of May 2014, Git is the most widely used source-code management tool, with 42.

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16.

Git was the overwhelming favorite of responding developers in these surveys, reporting as high as 93.

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17.

VFS for Git allows cloned repositories to use placeholders whose contents are downloaded only once a file is accessed.

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