Author: Travis Swicegood
Publisher: The Pragmatic Bookshelf
ISBN-10: 1-934356-15-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-934356-15-9, $23.07 (amazon.com)

Reviewer: John Griffin

Overview

Brainchild of Linus Torvalds, the relatively new version control system (VCS) on the market today is GIT which, according to the dictionary, is British slang for a Scottish term meaning "illegitimate child, brat" (thanks Linus). So, great, you say, just what we need another VCS! However, this one is different. It' a distributed VCS (DVCS)! You are no longer tied to a central server. You can work offline (so what if your Internet connection is down!) and then commit to an upstream server when you feel like it.
Git also provides bi-directional communications with SVN. You can clone SVN to a local Git repository and then push back to that same SVN repository when you are done. Git also allows for importing from a CVS repository but that is one-way communications.

Summary of Contents

Chapter 1, Version Control the Git Way, is where you'll learn about version control in general and some of the fundamental concepts around VCS and how DVCS is different.

When you are done with this chapter you can use Git for everyday version control system tasks. Now THAT'S impressive.

Chapter 2, Setting Up Git, walks you through installing and configuring Git.
Chapter 3, Creating Your First Project gets your feet wet by working on a simple HTML project  that showcases a lot of Git's functionality in a real project.
Chapters 2 and 3 are hands-on, so have your computer handy.
Chapter 4, Adding and Committing: Git Basics deals with the basics— the commands you need to accomplish everyday tasks—getting a repository started, making commits, and so on.
Chapter 5, Understanding and Using Branches. Branching is so key to how Git operates that there's a full chapter explaining what branches are and how to use them. With the first two chapters of Part II out of the way, you'll be
Chapter 6, Working with Git's History. Now you're ready to start exploring the history of changes you've been creating.
Chapter 7, Working with Remote Repositories This chapter introduces you to the concepts around sharing your work with others through remote repositories. The "social" aspect of any version control system is its killer feature, and Git is no different.
Chapter 8, Organizing Your Repository. Here you'll learn about some organizational techniques to keep your repository sane.
Chapter 9, Beyond the Basics. This chapter introduces you to some commands you'll find useful for specialized situations.
Chapter 10, Migrating to Git, shows you how to handle migration to Git from other popular VCSs, SVN and CVS.
Chapter 11, Running a Git Server with Gitosis, teaches you how to administer your public repositories with Gitosis.
Appendix A, contains command reference so you can quickly find out how to do common commands.
Appendix B, covers some extra tools—some that ship with Git and some of which you have to install yourself—and links to online resources.
Appendix C, you'll find information on other books that are referenced throughout this one.

Opinion

Short and sweet! This is an excellent book to learn the fundamentals of Git. At 179 pages including the index, there's not a lot of room to wander from the main topic of this book. The author has also supplied downloadable Git repositories at the start of every chapter in case you want to skip around the chapters. That's right, you can read the chapters in any order you want and still be able to do the examples.

There is a caveat here though. This is a fundamentals book. It is definitely NOT a reference. Git has many commands that are not covered in the book but when you are done reading it you will be able to use Git in a productive manner.
The chapters all have lots of examples to follow along with, but keep in mind they are jumping-off points for how to use Git to work with your code's history. Once you get more comfortable, feel free to experiment.

Chapters 10 and 11 is all about administration and is not required reading if someone else on your team or in your company handles that for you.

If you are the least bit interested in Git, get the book. It's worth every cent.