You've Git to be kidding me!

Posted on 2 mins read

As a lone writer who had to get to grips with Git when I started a new role in early 2019, I have to say there’s definitely a steep learning curve to it.

Git
Source: xkcd.com

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” wasn’t the only thing I muttered when I came across my first few merge conflicts.

However, I found that it was worthwhile persevering as although Git seemed like a complete black box of magic tricks at the beginning, I came to realise that it’s a really powerful and useful tool. And not just for software development, but also for technical writers following docs-as-code processes.

There are some great online resources for learning Git, and I had loads of help from my fantastic development team colleagues, who got me out of my fair share of Git messes.

These two online courses also helped me enormously:

I wouldn’t say I’m an especially advanced user of Git by any means, and I still have a fair few Git nightmares, but I now feel relatively comfortable using it. I feel a lot more comfortable resolving conflicts and even using more advanced features like cherry-picking.

Git is an amazing tool and I think it’s worth learning if you’re a technical writer working in the software industry.

Also, this is essential viewing if you’re going to be using Git: Oh Shit, Git!?!.

And a big shout out to this book too: