360° Git training

Curriculum

Preparing your work environment

• Global vs. local settings
• Aliases and must-have shortuts
• Enabling auto-completion
• Useful state info in your command-line prompt

The concepts of versioning with Git

• “Zones:” working directory/tree, index/stage, repository
• “States:” untracked, modified, staged, unmodified
• Dive into the .git folder

My first repo

• Initializing the repo
• Root commit
• Global and local exclusion files (.gitignore, .git/info/exclude…)
• Knowing what’s in each zone / state by efficiently using git diff
• The all-important concept of HEAD
• Revision syntaxes: from basic to advanced, always useful
• Optimizing log browsing: hidden gems of git log

Atomic commits and surgical approach

• Partial staging (only specific files or even file parts)
• Unstaging
• Cancelling the latest commit
• Editing the latest commit
• Frequent, handy shortcuts

Managing emergencies with the stash

• Shifting the current work aside to tackle an emergency task
• Getting your stash back (multiple ways)
• Working around Git’s conservatism during merges

Getting a “lost” commit back

• The reflog
• How the reflog is kept or trimmed

Branch management

• What is a branch exactly, with Git? Contrasting with traditional systems (e.g. SVN)
• Traditional merging
• Fast-forwards
• Merge strategies and automatic resolutions
• A methodology for solving conflicts
• Merging vs. rebasing: when, why, for what situations?
• Typical rebasing scenarios
• Branch management strategies and collaborative workflows

Git reset, Git’s poorly-known Swiss-army knife

• What is a reset?
• The 5 reset modes
• Typical scenarios where reset saves the day
• Undoable vs. definitive resets

Grooming your log history

• A spotless history: what’s the point?
• Reordering commits
• Removing commits
• Splitting commits
• Merging commits
• Cancelling an older commit

Remote repositories (“remotes”)

• As many remotes as you want…
• Git’s protocols for remotes: preferences by context
• Understanding the interrelations between fetch, merge, rebase, pull and push
• Tracking or not?
• Remote branches vs. local branches
• Honing best practices and reflexes so push and pull work great

Getting just the commits you want from the log

• Cherry-picking
• Quickly listing relevant commits and branches

Automatically tracking a bug’s origin

• Binary search principle
• Manually running git bisect
• Scripting and automating git bisect

Recording and replaying manual conflict resolutions

• Configuring rerere
• Recording a conflict resolution
• Replaying the resolution, automatically or manually
• Applied workflow: avoiding both control merges and rebasing on long-lived branches

Understanding and mastering submodules

• Fundamentals
• Contrasting with svn:externals
• Setup
• Deployment
• Updates
• The numerous pitfalls

Understanding and mastering subtrees

• Principles and contrasting with submodules
• Setup
• Deployment
• Updates
• Subtrees vs. submodules: what to choose for what use-cases?

Event-driven automated processsing

• Hooks
• Client-side vs. server-side hooks
• Typical use-cases
• A few concrete examples

Trainer

Maxime Bréhin

With a Masters of Computer Science scored in 2006, Maxime slogged for 5 years through the marshes of Java/Subversion in the FinTech consulting sector…

After a year in Australia in 2009, he turned to much more palatable techs: Ruby, Rails and Git. He started working with Christophe in 2010, joining his R&D engineering team to design and implement an e-commerce solution.

He succeeded Christophe as CTO there in 2012, to join him again 3 years later at DI.

Maxime is an R&D engineer at Delicious Insights.

• LinkedIn
• Twitter @mbrehin
• GitHub mbrehin
• YouTube

Intended audience

The 360° Git training course targets anyone working on source control repositories. This is mostly developers, but may also include product owners, documentation writers, QA engineers, etc.

It is perfect both for existing Git users who want to level up their understanding of the tool and its commands (such as those that feel, like most Git users, that they’re under-using / abusing it and essentially do “SVN with Git”) and people looking to switch to Git in the best possible conditions.

The course addresses the frustrations of anyone who feels they’re missing out on Git’s powerful capacities, that are likely to boost their daily work.

Prior knowledge of at least one widespread source control system (such as Suversion, Perforce, ClearCase, TFS, Mercurial or Bazaar) is still useful, as it brings familiarity with many basic concepts such as revisions/versions/commits, main branch vs. ancilliary branches, tags, etc. It is, however, by no means a pre-requisite.

Pre-requisites

There is no pre-requisite for this training course (as in, verifiably acquired knowledge, through degrees, certifications, tests, etc.).

Logistics

• Every session is held synchronously, “live,” including remote sessions. This is not about pre-recorded videos.
• We are currently not scheduling new multi-client in-room sessions before, at the earliest, April 1st, 2022.
• Comprehensive course material is provided, acting as a common thread. It usually includes numerous slides and starter codebases or repositories for every exercise and lab.
• Trainees can ask questions at any time.
• Sessions always alternate between theory and hands-on labs, in short intervals (5 minutes to 1 hour).
• Hands-on periods rely on real-world use-cases (which can be bootstrapped through starter codebases, Git repositories or online assignment labs).
• Hands-on periods may be completed individually or as sub-groups that may vary from one period to the next, to foster pair programming and collaboration.
• Remote sessions use a Zoom recurring meeting, accessible through a provided link using both the installed app and the pure-web, no-install client. They mostly use features such as video thumbnails, screensharing, chat, breakout rooms and possibly quizzes, annotations and whiteboards.

Deliverables & assessments

• Every session half-day requires attendance signing (paper sheet or digital tool). For remote sessions, should a trainee fail to submit their entire attendance sheet in due time, Zoom participant logs will be considered authoritative.
• At the beginning of every day’s first period, we run a “debrief”: during about half an hour, we help collectively resurface skills and knowledge first tackled on the previous day. This helps put everyone back “in the zone,”, consolidate learning and boost group dynamics.
• Throughout the course, assessment of skill acquisition is done through the successful completion of hands-on labs (exercises, mini-projects, labs, use cases, etc.). Interactive quizzes may supplement this. The trainer remains available for any question during hands-on periods.
• Should a trainee exhibit significant difficulty, the trainer may opt to provide one-to-one mentoring for a while using the trainee’s computer as a working base. This also applies to remote sessions using Zoom’s dedicated features (e.g. one-to-one / individual assistance).
• When the session ends, every trainee may request a completion certificate (or at least attendance certificate) and, for remote sessions financed by a French institutional entity, we issue a standardized completion certificate in order for financing to be able to proceed smoothly.
• Once the training is over, every trainee receives a link to an online “hot” feedback survey, so they can express, among other things, whether they feel they achieved the stated goals of the training (or believe these will be achieved in the short term).

During the session, trainees receive at the start of every period access to:

• all the related slides and supporting material in a web-based format, so they can easily follow along,
• starter repositories for hands-on exercises.

Once the training is done, they also get:

• an extremely content-rich debrief e-mail,
• a reference archive with all related slides, starter repositories for all exercises with their detailed solutions, and various complementary resources.

Acquired skills are assessed throughout the session, looking at the success rate of interactive exercices (both autonomous and collaborative variants) in example repositories.

Hardware & software requirements

• Use a sufficiently powerful laptop, properly set up (in particular, having followed whatever training-specific setup guide might have been linked to in the summons e-mail or training’s web page).
• This laptop must be equipped with a webcam, microphone and audio output (preferrably using a headset or earphones, to avoid feedback).
• Use an internet access with a minimal bandwidth of 1Mbps both ways, with an ideal minimum of 5Mbps (test your bandwidth here)
• Be able to run Zoom, either as a regularly installed software, or through their 100% web-based client. You can verify your installed client works fine using this test.

• 360° Git courses require some prior installation on your computer: instructions can be found here.

Registration & deadlines

Regardless of the modalities you’re looking for (single- or multi-client, in-room or remote), your initial request (for quotation or contract) should be made online from the training’s web page. You can find further up contract request links for every available multi-client session, a proposal request button for a single-client session, and for any other enquiry can use the contact button further below. Please favor our online forms as they speed up processing by avoiding numerous e-mail back-and-forths in order for us to get all your necessary information.

For multi-client, fixed-date sessions, we reply to quotation or contract requests within at most 2 business days (and usually within minutes). For single-client, custom sessions, we usually get back to you within 3 business days to fine-tune your requirements and create a bespoke offer.

The e-mails we send to provide quotations or contracts, as well as our online training pages, provide a link to an online survey prospective trainees can use for fit-for-needs assessment; this information should get to us ASAP, ideally before contract signing, so we can verify our training offer is a good match for the audience.

Summons are sent by e-mail no later than 7 days prior to the session, at which time a potential cancellation decision (usually because two few trainees registered) is made. If the session is guaranteed ahead of that deadline, we can send your summons earlier at your request.

For multi-client sessions, you can register online (requesting a contract and sending it back signed by e-mail) until the day before the session starts, provided the required amount of seats remain free. If you finalize your registration after the usual summons-sending deadline, your summons are sent immediately by e-mail.

However, when French nationals contractualize with us in their personal capacity, French law mandates a withdrawal period (10 calendar days for in-room sessions, 14 calendar days for online sessions). In order to allow such clients to register later than this, they are provided an opt-in choice in their contract request online form to waive their withdrawal rights if the schedule requires it.

For French client entities applying for third-party financing (e.g. OPCOs, Pôle Emploi, Regions, EU), it is imperative that financing agreements be sent to Delicious Insights no later than the last day of the training session. Should financing be denied or only partially provisioned, the client is liable for payment of the balance of the fee.

You can find more information on the details of registration, cancelling and getting refunds in our Terms of Sale.

Disabilities & special needs

The French law dated September 5, 2018 for “freedom to choose one’s professional future” aims to facilitate accessing and retaining a job for people with disabilities or special needs.

Delicious Insights is very keen to help everyone, regardless of their particulars, move forward professionally.

We can often adapt the modalities of our trainings to fit your needs: let’s just review your situation together.

Do feel free to get in touch with our point person for Disabilities, Christophe Porteneuve, by e-mail or phone.

Do feel free to get in touch with our point person for Disabilities, Christophe Porteneuve, by e-mail at handicap@delicious-insights.com or phone at +33 662 059 656.