Git for Small Businesses

Version control software can be a game-changer for software development in your small business. Here’s why Git is such an important tool to have.

By far, Git is the most-used free and open-source version control system for projects and developers, with almost 75% market share.

The remaining majority of the market share for version control software is in another free tool called Subversion. It’s not that Subversion is a bad tool, but the concepts backing it up are centralized. Being a small to medium-sized business, you’re more probable to save money by not going this route.

Confused? Don’t worry, because we’re going to cover everything you need to know. keep reading to find out.

What is Git?

Git is a free and open-source version control system.

In 2005, upset about BitKeeper pulling the license that Linux was using for its source-control management, Linus Torvalds decided to create Git. Torvalds had created the operating system, Linux, 14 years earlier.

Using the experience he had in a large, distributed, open-source development project (Linux) and file-system performance, Torvalds was able to achieve his goal in record-breaking time. Despite only starting the project on April 3 of 2005, Git became self-hosting only four days later.

That is, Git creation as a useable distributed version control system (DVCS) took only four days. After three months and 23 days, Torvalds turned management over to a major contributor to the project, Junio Hamano.

The project claimed success on April 29 as it benchmarked at a patch rate of 6.7 patches per second. Previously, Torvalds had found that on other systems individual patches would take upward of 30 seconds.

He had made a high-performance version control system, from scratch, free to use for all developers, in only four days.

Some of the best benefits of Git are:

Distributed development
Compatibility with existing protocols and systems
Non-linear development support
Design based on Toolkits
Merkle-tree-based cryptographic history authentication
Manual merge authorization
Automatic garbage collection

Linus Torvalds invented the Linux operating system for general users without expensive licensing. He also created Git as a free “operating system” of version control. He himself has said that he approached Git’s construction as a filesystem control, rather than a traditional SCM system.

Git on a Budget

It’s said that Git is 100% about efficiency.

Developers and engineers waste less time passing commits over a network to a centralized development environment. It also reduces the man-hours of managers and senior engineers to merge and integrate changes.

It’s safe enough that junior developers can work in an environment that is nondestructive. This saves days or even weeks, in case of lost or corrupted data. Junior developers also get to flex their muscles and grow on the job through experimentation.

Git supports an agile development environment for your team in a decentralized manner. That means that you don’t need a central Apache server to host your VCS, like Subversion. You also don’t need someone managing that server database.

As far as marketing and UI/UX teams are concerned, there could be nothing better. They have a sandbox to play in using the actual product without fear of breaking it, or high overhead costs. Rather than design using lorem ipsum and template stand-ins, they have the real deal.

The marketing team is able to freely perform marketing automation tasks, A/B testing and other marketing methodologies to maximize your customer traffic, leads, and acceptance.

All this leads to maximizing effort on success and minimizing it on spinning your wheels. Git use and acceptance on your team will multiply all your business activity. Not only is your team working efficiently, but they’re also working in unison.

Common Git Commands

Git does come with a bit of a learning curve, though. A number of Git commands to get you started will be helpful to remember. When it comes to those basics, you should know about:

git init <directory>
git add <directory>
git commit =m “<message>”
git clone <repo>
git status
git log
git diff
git config user.name <name>

Some of the most useful Git commands you’ll need at the start are going to be the config options. It’s great to know you can create your own aliases for commands as well.

git config –globalalias. <alias-name> <git-command>
git config –system core.editor <editor>
git config –global –edit
git config –global user.email <email>
git config –global user.name <name>

To find more, and what they do, you can always go to the main command list page for Git.

Why You Don’t Use Git Already

The reasons boil down to three main areas:

Status quo
Uncertainty
A previously bad experience

Some opinions range from:

“If you have more than one developer, it’s like a surgeon working with unsterilized tools, no gloves, or a mask. You’re going to kill the patient.”

To:

“We have a group spreadsheet with sheets for each file we’re working on and comments to track changes for each commit. Good enough.”

Really — no, really — it isn’t. The truth of the matter is that you wouldn’t trust a surgeon with no mask or gloves and dirty tools. Why would you trust a product from a group of developers that don’t use version control systems like Git?

No doubt, the tech debt and the number of unresolved (or unresolvable) bugs are high.

No matter how large the size of your team, you’re going to need to take control of your source code. If the number of your development team is higher than one, some kind of version control system based on Git is a must.

That includes a small business.

Git for your BizDevOps

So are you still using a centralized VCS? Even worse, are you using an Excel spreadsheet? After reading this article, no doubt you see the need for using a true VCS for your team.

Especially if you have more than one developer on your projects. No matter if you’re a small or medium-sized business, you’re going to benefit from Git.

You’ll also benefit from the kind of attention and integration that BizDevOps can deliver. From click funnels, to A/B testing, to social media management, the BizDev team will turn your business into a money-making machine.