What is Git and Why is it Useful?

The most widely used modern version control system in the world just happens to be Git. It’s an open-source tool that’s both mature and actively maintained by its passionate community. There’s an abundance of software projects that rely on Git for version control and those can be both commercial or open-source in nature.

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With its distributed architecture, Git is a DVCS (Distributed Version Control System) so that users can have a full repository of changes that have been made to the code over time. Along with being distributed, Git is designed to be safe, flexible, and offers excellent performance.

With so much going for it, it’s no wonder companies around the world use Git within their teams. But how, exactly, can it be useful for your team?

The advantages of Git

When it comes to considering Git, most companies will point to that fact that:

Git is widely accepted and used around the world

When it comes to other VCS (Version Control Systems), Git is the most widely accepted. Why? It offer excellent usability and performance standards that any company of any size can rely on.

It’s open-source at its best

Git is open-source, meaning even the smallest organization can afford to jump on Git and get started. It also means the platform is widely supported and those maintaining the project have a long term vision. Upgrades happen at regular intervals that are staged and work to improve its functionality. Because the software made available on Git is heavily scrutenized repeatedly, the code quality is excellent.

Git is flexibility defined

One of the main objectives of Git is to stay flexible and it does this by offering support to many kinds of nonlinear development workflows. It can handle both small and large scale protocols and projects as well.

The system is secure

Designed to maintain a source code’s integrity. File contents are secured cryptographically. This protest the code and change history against damage (malicious or otherwise). Because of this, users are sure in the authenticity of the source code’s history.

Git offers performance teams can count on

Compared to other version control systems, Git offers strength in performance. With Git:

  • New code changes are committed with ease
  • Version branches can be compared (and merged!)
  • Code can be optimized continuously to perform more effectively
  • Etc.

Reasons to switch to Git

Not using Git in your organization just yet? There are a variety of reasons you may be looking to swap your current system for Git. Here are just a few.

Teams choose their own working style

To get started on Git, you don’t need to be a coding expert. You also don’t have to work the same way everyone else does. Git is flexible enough to allow teams and team members to use their own workflow. Everyone who uses Git can:

  • Work from on central remote repository
  • Rebase instead of merge
  • Connect with multiple repositories
  • Work with submodules as needed

You can use it in tandem with other third-party softwareThe brilliance of Git is you can easily use it in conjunction with other platforms, such as Jira, so your project management and actual coding work can all come together in one place. By using a solution like Bitband’s Git-Jira integration application, users can:

  • Instantly connect to Github, Gitlab, and Bitbucket to automatically sync repos, branches and commits
  • Add any Jira issue ID to a commit with commit details will instantly visible inside Jira
  • See all commit details inside Jira, including source code diffs
  • At the project level and for each issue: have a summary of all commits, show number of lines added and deleted, files that have been updated, users that have submitted work, date/time work was committed, first commit, last commit, etc.

This allows project managers to more easily handle projects to keep them on track, and for teams to see the work of fellow team members to help projects move more swiftly and with greater visibility.

You save time

Git is lightning fast! No longer will team members have to wait for their version control system to get back to them.

You can work offline

For users that want to work on the move, Git makes it possible. No longer will team members have to be plugged into a central repository. Everything is possible, instead, but a team member’s local machine.

It’s easy to undo mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes! The difference with Git is teams don’t have to lose valuable time “redoing” all their hard work. That’s because Git has an “undo” command for almost every scenario. With Git, users can:

  • Correct their last commit that’s missing a small change
  • Revert entire commits
  • Restore deleted commits

Make useful commits

Git helps reduce confusion by creating granular commits. It has a unique staging area concept that allows users to determine exactly which changes should be included in the next commits, down to a single line of code.

For us, the magic of Git really is its ability to communicate with Jira, which makes project management a much easier task. However, whether your company is a user of Jira or not, Git can be a powerful ally. With its flexibility and relative ease of use, making Git a part of your product development toolbox will help you create better code in less time.

Want to find out how we’ve helped teams use Jira and Git together? Curious as to how our Jira add-ons can help your team communicate and work more effectively? Try our apps for GitHub, Git, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea, and Beanstalk – all of which allow for easy integration with Jira! Let’s chat!


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