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Git for Teams: A User-Centered Approach to Creating Efficient Workflows in Git
You can do more with Git than just build software. This practical guide delivers a unique people-first approach to version control that also explains how using Git as a focal point can help your team work better together. You’ll learn how to plan and pursue a Git workflow that not only ensures that you accomplish project goals, but also fits the immediate needs and future growth of your team. The first part of the book on structuring workflow is useful for project managers, technical team leads, and CTOs. The second part provides hands-on exercises to help developers gain a better understanding of Git commands.
356 pages, Paperback
First published August 24, 2015
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98 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 2, 2017
In my opinion, this book is good for someone who is at least an intermediate GIT user and want to improve his knowledge about working in teams. The writer knows the topic very well and explains many workflows you can follow, so you can find which one can better solve your problem.
January 30, 2016
Developed by the mastermind behind Linux to support the development of the kernel, Git is every developer's bread and butter. As such, there is plenty of documentation available online, as well hundreds of juicy code snippets ready to save us the day on Stack Overflow. And of course, searching for Git on the Amazon bookstore results in many pages of results. Among them, most of the books introduce the readers to Git, thus covering the basic commands and the architecture that makes it different from other VCS, such as Subversion. Git for Teams is difficult to categorize in this abudance of titles. It's neither an introduction to Git, nor an advanced text presenting lead developers and SCRUM masters how to better integreate Git within their projects. It's something in between, even though slightly more the latter than the former.
Released during the summer of 2015, and spanning some three hundred pages, Git for Teams presents the reader 12 chapters that cover many different aspects of Git, not all of them purely technical. As stated above, this book is difficult to categorize. Still, both the title and the back cover seem to rule out this being a text that teaches the basics of Git. On the back of the book, indeed, we read that This practical guide ... explains how using Git as a focal point can help your team work better together. The reader should definitely expect a book that shows how Git can be part of each and every step of the life cycle of a project. With real life examples, if possible.
The book can be hardly split into parts. While not a cookbook, each chapter stands on its own and does not require the previous ones. The first two chapters have little to do with Git. They are mostly focused on the team: how to set it up, chemistry, code of conduct. Software licenses are also taken into the discussion. The third chapter is by far the best of the whole book. It's about branching strategies. Throughout the years, indeed, many open source projects have presented and evolved models that are not broadly used: branch per feature, named branches (aka state branches), and scheduled deployment. Having a solid and consistent strategy often has a strong impact on the project itself, so that, based on the team size and distribution, it's important to pick a good branching strategy. The author presents four approaches in her book. Each is explained and also represented with friendly diagrams meant to give the reader a better overview of the whole process.
Chapter four gets us back to the first two: it discusses a topic, having a ticketing system, that while interesting, is not really about Git. Git is instead the guest star of the following chapters. Here the reader is presented the very basic Git commands, from cloning up to tracking remote repositories, passing through fetch and pull. Finally, the book ends discussing GitHub, Gitlab and BitBucket.
Thoughts. I think the title of this book is misleading. As the back cover states, this book should be about getting Git into the daily work flow of our team, not about how to set up a team and teach its members the basics of Git. Title apart, I think that this Git for Teams tries to cover too much terrain, ending up not covering well any of the topics. On the one hand, indeed, there are chapters presenting some of the very basic commands of Git. But just a part of them. If the team knows Git, these are not useful. If the ream does not, these are not enough. On the other hand, chapter three, which presents different branching strategies is not bad per se, but it's all alone, surrounded by another eleven chapters talking about other things.
I must admit that the book is easy to read, even if there is not a real flow of the information. As stated already, indeed, each chapter stands more or less on its own. The author presents a lot of diagrams and images which are easy to understand and informative. Thumbs up there.
Tying it all up, I did not like this book. I do not judge the content itself, but the fact that most of it has little to do with Git at all. Too bad chapter 3 was all alone. That is definitely what lead developers and project managers are interested into. Setting up a team and software licenses are interesting topics. But they do not really fit here.
As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!
Released during the summer of 2015, and spanning some three hundred pages, Git for Teams presents the reader 12 chapters that cover many different aspects of Git, not all of them purely technical. As stated above, this book is difficult to categorize. Still, both the title and the back cover seem to rule out this being a text that teaches the basics of Git. On the back of the book, indeed, we read that This practical guide ... explains how using Git as a focal point can help your team work better together. The reader should definitely expect a book that shows how Git can be part of each and every step of the life cycle of a project. With real life examples, if possible.
The book can be hardly split into parts. While not a cookbook, each chapter stands on its own and does not require the previous ones. The first two chapters have little to do with Git. They are mostly focused on the team: how to set it up, chemistry, code of conduct. Software licenses are also taken into the discussion. The third chapter is by far the best of the whole book. It's about branching strategies. Throughout the years, indeed, many open source projects have presented and evolved models that are not broadly used: branch per feature, named branches (aka state branches), and scheduled deployment. Having a solid and consistent strategy often has a strong impact on the project itself, so that, based on the team size and distribution, it's important to pick a good branching strategy. The author presents four approaches in her book. Each is explained and also represented with friendly diagrams meant to give the reader a better overview of the whole process.
Chapter four gets us back to the first two: it discusses a topic, having a ticketing system, that while interesting, is not really about Git. Git is instead the guest star of the following chapters. Here the reader is presented the very basic Git commands, from cloning up to tracking remote repositories, passing through fetch and pull. Finally, the book ends discussing GitHub, Gitlab and BitBucket.
Thoughts. I think the title of this book is misleading. As the back cover states, this book should be about getting Git into the daily work flow of our team, not about how to set up a team and teach its members the basics of Git. Title apart, I think that this Git for Teams tries to cover too much terrain, ending up not covering well any of the topics. On the one hand, indeed, there are chapters presenting some of the very basic commands of Git. But just a part of them. If the team knows Git, these are not useful. If the ream does not, these are not enough. On the other hand, chapter three, which presents different branching strategies is not bad per se, but it's all alone, surrounded by another eleven chapters talking about other things.
I must admit that the book is easy to read, even if there is not a real flow of the information. As stated already, indeed, each chapter stands more or less on its own. The author presents a lot of diagrams and images which are easy to understand and informative. Thumbs up there.
Tying it all up, I did not like this book. I do not judge the content itself, but the fact that most of it has little to do with Git at all. Too bad chapter 3 was all alone. That is definitely what lead developers and project managers are interested into. Setting up a team and software licenses are interesting topics. But they do not really fit here.
As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!
October 1, 2017
The book contains a few interesting graphics and flow diagrams to determine which command in your situation is he right one. If you are in a situation you don’t want to be, those will help you to quickly resolve them without making the situation worse.
I was a bit surprised how long it took to come to Git commands. The introduction works without any commands, but I find it not that helpful to talk about a command and not showing it. I’m also a bit puzzled about the structure. You have everything in the book to explain Git for beginners and go up to teamwork. But with the structure it has, the book will be hard to understand for a Git novice. And those who are interested in the teamwork part are bored with commands that should be part of an introduction. The same problem I found in the chapters about the platforms to host your Git repositories. It’s nice to show options, but explaining GitHub, BitBucket and GitLab seems to be too much for a book on how teams can work with Git.
August 17, 2019
As someone who uses git regularly, I thought the book tries to do too much. Part one and three cater to folks new to what and why of versioning and version control systems. Part two deals with git as a vcs. While most of the important features of git are covered, the exposition feels a bit dense. But the command reference at the end of chapters 5 and 6 can be very useful. Overall, it is a good book for beginners looking for one book on vcs and git. For only git, then I recommend "jump start git" and "git for humans" for beginners.
May 29, 2020
An excellent overview of using git. Unlike most git books that start with the object model and build up, this starts at the top with the workflow and builds down and backs into all the commands. One of the best recommendations in the book is to document your process and have flowcharts for various scenarios. I think that is essential. Otherwise, gits flexibility combined with its complete lack of design for usability will just create chaos.
I do recommend pairing this with another git book that covers the object model. I think both approaches are necessary.
I do recommend pairing this with another git book that covers the object model. I think both approaches are necessary.
March 29, 2019
Each chapter can be read separately. Some very useful, some not. Teaches the basic concepts from working solo or in teams. Focusses on command driven git rather than GUI.
March 30, 2019
It was more basic than I was expecting.
January 10, 2017
As someone who has been using Git for some time, but would still class himself a novice user, I'd say it's a worthwhile read. I now have a much better sense of what Git has to offer and the contexts I might use it. I also believe my commenting and documenting is better for having read Git for Teams.
For many people, and the author suggests this, the book may be better read out of order. The later chapters feel calmer and more planned, while the core part of the book flows too quickly, and often without clarifying the thinking.
I'm not sure how valuable it would be as a desktop reference, but I have learned a lot from reading it and feel I would learn more from reading appropriate sections in greater depth.
For many people, and the author suggests this, the book may be better read out of order. The later chapters feel calmer and more planned, while the core part of the book flows too quickly, and often without clarifying the thinking.
I'm not sure how valuable it would be as a desktop reference, but I have learned a lot from reading it and feel I would learn more from reading appropriate sections in greater depth.
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January 21, 2016DL027884 GG6
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews