All Episodes

August 28, 2022 97 mins

We are committed to continuing our deep dive into Git from the Bottom Up by John Wiegley, while Allen puts too much thought into onions, Michael still doesn’t understand proper nouns, and Joe is out hat shopping.

The full show notes for this episode are available at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode192.

News

  • Thanks for the review Alex Woodhead!
  • Ludum Dare is a bi-annual game jam that’s been running for over 20 years now. Jam #51 is coming up Sept 30th to October 3rd. (ldjam.com)
    • We previously talked about Ludum Dare in episode 146.

Commitment Issues

Commits

  • A commit can have one or more parents.
    • Those commits can have one more parents.
    • It’s for this reason that commits can be treated like branches, because they know their entire lineage.
    • You can examine top level referenced commits with the following command: git branch -v.
  • A branch is just a named reference to a commit!
  • A branch and a tag both name a commit, with the exception that a tag can have a description, similar to a commit.
    • Branches are just names that point to a commit.
    • Tags have descriptions and point to a commit.
  • Knowing the above two points, you actually don’t technically need branches or tags. You could do everything pointing to the commit hash id’s if you were insane enough to do so.
  • Here’s a dangerous command:
    • git reset --hard commitHash – This is dangerous. --hard says to erase all changes in the working tree, whether they were registered for a check-in or not and reset HEAD to point to the commitHash.
  • Here’s a safer command:
    • git checkout commitHash – This is a safer option, because files changed in the working tree are preserved. However, adding the -f parameter acts similar as the previous command, except that it doesn’t change the branch’s HEAD, and instead only changes the working tree.
  • Some simple concepts to grasp:
    • If a commit has multiple parents, it’s a merge commit.
    • If a commit has multiple children, it represents the ancestor of a branch.
  • Simply put, Git is a collection of commits, each of which holds a tree which reference other trees and blobs, which store data.
    • All other things in Git are named concepts but they all boil down to the above statement.

A commit by any other name

  • The key to knowing Git is to truly understand commits.
  • Learning to name your commits is the way to mastering Git.
    • branchname – The name of a branch is an alias to the most recent commit on that branch.
    • tagname – Similar to the branch name in that the name points to a specific commit but the difference is a tag can never change the commit id it points to.
    • HEAD – The currently checked out commit. Checking out a specific commit takes you out of a “branch” and you are then in a “detached HEAD” state.
    • The 40 character hash id – A commit can always be referenced by the full SHA1 hash.
      • You can refer to a commit by a shorter version of the hash id, enough characters to make it unique, usually 6 or 7 characters is enough.
    • name^ – Using the caret tells Git to go to the parent of the provided commit. If a commit has more than one parent, the first one is cho
Mark as Played

Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

The Charlie Kirk Show

The Charlie Kirk Show

Charlie is America's hardest working grassroots activist who has your inside scoop on the biggest news of the day and what's really going on behind the headlines. The founder of Turning Point USA and one of social media's most engaged personalities, Charlie is on the front lines of America’s culture war, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of students on over 3,500 college and high school campuses across the country, bringing you your daily dose of clarity in a sea of chaos all from his signature no-holds-barred, unapologetically conservative, freedom-loving point of view. You can also watch Charlie Kirk on Salem News Channel

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.