Summary

In this chapter, we have learned how to develop with Git and extend the project history by creating new commits and new lines of development (branches). We know what it means to create a commit, amend a commit, create a branch, switch a branch, rewind a branch, and delete a branch from the point of view of the graph of revisions.

This chapter showed a very important Git feature — the staging area for creating commits, also known as the index. This is what makes it possible to untangle the changes to the working directory by selectively and interactively choosing what to commit.

We learned how to examine the changes to the working area before creating a commit. This chapter described, in detail, the extended unified diff format that Git uses to describe the changes.

We also learned about the concept of detached HEAD (or anonymous branch) and orphan branches.

In Chapter 3, Managing Your Worktrees, we will learn how to use Git to prepare new commits and how...