Software Engineering Essentials

Distributed Version Control

Bernd Bruegge, Stephan Krusche, Andreas Seitz, Jan Knobloch

Chair for Applied Software Engineering — Faculty of Informatics

Learning goals

1) Apply distributed version control in SourceTree

2) Understand different git commands and best practices

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Distributed version control overview

Local
 Local

Developer repository repository Developer

Remote

repository

Web Local

Developer interface repository Developer
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Share changes: commit
I want to store 

file1 and file2 

Developer in the repository

commit

Working A commit in git contains all Local

directory changes between two repository
versions

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Share changes: stage + commit
Select the changed Commit the selected
files you want to changes to the local
commit repository

add commit

Working Staging 
 Local

directory area repository

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Share changes: stage + commit + push
Push changes to a
remote repository
(promotion)

add commit push

Working Staging 
 Local Remote

directory area repository repository

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Overview of git commands
• git add: add changes to the staging area

• git commit: commit selected changes of the

staging area to your local repository

• git push: upload local commits to a 


remote repository

• git pull (fetch & merge): download and merge

remote commits into your working directory

• git clone (fetch & initial checkout): clone a

complete repository into a new working directory

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Best practices
• Commit related changes

• Commit and push often, at least daily, but do not commit half done work

• Test changes before committing them

• Write meaningful and understandable commit messages

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Best practices
• Commit related changes

• Commit and push often, at least daily, but do not commit half done work

• Test changes before committing them

• Write meaningful and understandable commit messages

• Do not use version control as a backup 


system for binary files

• Keep the local working directory of the 


repository up to date (regularly pull and push)

• Do not change published history

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