Two decades of Git: A conversation with creator Linus Torvalds (Category Software)
Interesting. story Linus Torvaldas on how 20 years ago, April 2005-ho, Linus for 10 The first version of Git was released. He did this because Linux kernel developers had their favorite tool taken away. (BitKeeper). Git was born out of pain: CVS Linus hated, SVN considered "the same CVS". He admits that he originally wrote Git "for himself", not worrying about the convenience of others.
Linus only supported Git for a few months, and by the fall 2005 It was developed by another developer, Junio Hamano. (He's still the Maintainer.). Torvalds returned to his beloved child (Linux kernel)And Git took his life. Gradually something changed in the community: after a couple of years, people tried the tool. Especially helped by the influx of young developers, for whom Git was the first version control system. Instead of fussing with an outdated CVS, they happily used Git and wondered why it was different before. As a result, Git took off and almost monopolized the VCS market - now, according to Linus, the order of the day. 98Percent of projects on it. Even Torvalds' daughter once told him that he was known in the university lab more as the author of Git than Linux.
Key ideas and Git chips are as follows:
1Distribution There is no main repository in Git, each cloned repo is complete. This is not just a philosophy, but a huge practical convenience: a developer can work locally without a central server, and if necessary, put the code anywhere. (GitHub was created because of this idea.). It seems to me that local-first application by design. 2Speed and scalability Git was designed for a giant Linux repository, so all operations (patches, mergers) They have to be quick. Linus jokes about what to use 100 Patches should be a matter of seconds – “don’t have time to drink coffee while you wait.” 3Reliability of data Each commit and object is tagged with a crypto hash (SHA-1)This is more about protection from accidental damage or errors than about safety. This kind of integrity check at every step set Git apart from previous systems. (BitKeeper, for example, was weaker than CRC/MD5 and did not cover everything.). 4Simplicity of the core Git is based on just a few concepts. (objects, indexes, branches)The first version was written quickly and is still compatible. (nearly) from the present. All the hard stuff is done or "up" (command interface, scripts)Or came later.
Interestingly, Linus, inspired by the philosophy of Unix, deliberately did not copy the usual commands of CVS – did in his own way, even gave the names of others. (commit-tree, index, etc.)What caused battles on postal lists. But he deliberately broke the foundations: he was too annoyed by the old approaches, wanted a radically different tool.
In general, the history of Git is a great example of how a developer solves a problem, and as a result, changes the industry. Linus just wanted to keep developing the kernel without having to suffer with a disgusting tool - and out of this was born Git, without which neither developers nor teams can think of work. Sometimes it is really worth taking and doing the right thing, even if initially the product is raw and uncomfortable: if the right principles are based, the community will pull up and bring it to mind. We see open tools beating closed tools. (BitKeeper has sunk into oblivion, Git reigns).
Torvalds notes that an ecosystem has grown around Git that solves problems he never thought of. For example, there are extensions for large files and monorepositories. (hello n) Git was not originally planned for this, but life forced it. His idea of a task/bug tracker is interesting: now each hosting has its own issue system, and Linus wants a single open standard. (So that there is no link to a specific service). Perhaps this is a hint of a community that still has room for innovation 😉
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