Pragmatic Bookshelf announces new Pragmatic Guide series | Hacker News Reader

Pragmatic Bookshelf announces new Pragmatic Guide series

media.pragprog.com

42 pointstswicegood8 comments

Great to see the prags are continuing to push things forward with another new series.

Really wish they'd bring the podcast back, though.

How is this different from their existing book on git? What's the difference between "Pragmatic Guide to Git" and "Pragmatic Version Control Using Git"? I'm assuming the latter is aimed more towards people without version control experience?

Correct. My first book is part of the Pragmatic Starter Kit which is aimed at people who are just starting out. There's a lot of good material in it for people who have used VCS but don't understand them well, but it starts off explaining what a repository is, what a commit is, and so on.

This book is much more concise and assumes the reader has a basic understanding of version control systems and is looking to get up-to-speed on Git.

There is no reason for someone who has read your first book to buy the Guide, correct? This is a reduced and reformatted field guide that contains no information that isn't in the larger Git book?

(I'm almost finished reading your first book and as someone who is very capable with Subversion it has helped me tremendously with grokking Git. Thanks!)

Well, I might be biased, but I think there's a place for both books on a bookshelf. :-)

The first book is aimed at getting your started down Git with little or no previous knowledge, the second book serves the same purpose assuming you have a basic grasp of VCS, but it serves a dual role as a reference.

Check out some of the excerpts that are available on the book's site to get an idea for what it looks like. The idea is that it gives you a quick reference when you're trying to remember how to do a particular task.

I have the feeling that that distinction will generally be lost in the titles.

Just want to say; I just bought the Git Guide PDF, and its already proved useful as a quick reference. There's definitely room in my Programming PDF folder for guides like this.

Glad you're already enjoying it. Thanks for the purchase. :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com