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Git Reference

gitref.org

142 pointsfogus11 comments

This is a pretty good overall introduction to Git, but I find myself always turning to this as a reference:

http://ndpsoftware.com/git-cheatsheet.html

Not to be too much of a curmudgeon, but does no one read man pages anymore? It seems like the world is drowning in "git references" that are really just tutorials. You guys know there's a reference delivered with the software, right? It's actually pretty good.

I knew I'd see this comment here. Not all man pages are easy to read. The git man pages seem to be more focused on consistency and preciseness than readability, which is a great thing! However, newcomers may not be able to interpret the information into practical terms. If I were to describe 'git push' to a novice developer, I wouldn't say "Updates remote refs using local refs, while sending objects necessary to complete the given refs. ", even if that's exactly what's happening.

Maybe my standards are higher for what users should be expected to be able to read. No, that sentence isn't a good introduction for someone who is new to git's data model (and I'm sure they would be happy to accept patches to fix it). But on the whole I think git's included documentation is extraordinarily good.

But the real problem is the number of people out there who rely on sites like this one (and there are many sites like this one!) as a complete replacement for the actual software documentation. And so they fail to understand or be exposed to some of the more subtle bits. So to extend your example they get a better introduction to "git push", but they never get a good understanding of "push -f" (and thus use it as voodoo), or the "-u" argument (and thus never learn how to manage remote tracking branches).

I've got nothing against tutorials. But this site (and all the others) look like's it's trying to replace the actual documentation for aesthetic reasons (because web geeks can't handle troff output), and IMHO it's doing it badly.

You raise a good point. So we can agree that those who wish to simplify documentation should contribute directly to the docs instead of making a tutorial. That way the author of the project can ensure the explanations/examples are accurate, and more people can use the man page.

"and thus never learn how to manage remote tracking branches"

You assume that the user will use that site as only reference to git ever. Many people (including me) are very thankful to sites like this for providing a overview of the most-used commands, so they can start using it as soon as possible for actual projects.

Diving further into it and learning all the powerful capabilities can always be done later by reading the man pages (either on the web or as "troff output").

Have you tried reading the git man page? It's well-written, but it's a technical manual of how git works, not a manual describing how to use git.

This is pretty old isn't it? Good and short overview, though.

This GitHub Series is also pretty awesome for starters: http://learn.github.com/p/intro.html

I really like the layout and presentation of this site. The information is easy to read and very clear.

It's just a bit too wide to comfortably read when I have a full-screen browser window. Otherwise, it's very good, and simple to follow.

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