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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

Author and developer Scott Chacon has reflected that twenty years, as of April 7^th, Linus Torvalds made the first commit to Git [gitbutler.com], the free and open source distributed version control system which he was building at the time [iu.edu]. Linus has long since passed the baton onward. As a developer tool, Git [git-scm.com] is known for its quirks and idiosyncrasies as much as its ability to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Over these last 20 years, Git went from a small, simple, personal project to the most massively dominant version control system ever built.

I have personally had a hell of a ride on this particular software roller coaster.

I started using Git for something you might not imagine it was intended for, only a few months after it’s first commit. I then went on to found GitHub, write arguably the most widely read book on Git, build the official website of the project, start the annual developer conference, etc - this little project has changed the world of software development, but more personally, it has massively changed the course of my life.

I thought it would be fun today, as the Git project rolls into it’s third decade, to remember the earliest days of Git and explain a bit why I find this project so endlessly fascinating.

Although Git is often used as part of a set of services like those provided by Codeberg, Gitlab, and others more or less infamous it is perfectly easy to run it in-house. Either way it has become virtually synonymous with version control. Over the years, Git has gradually pushed aside its predecessors and even many (if not all) of its contemporary competitors.

Previously:
(2024) Beyond Git: How Version Control Systems Are Evolving For Devops [soylentnews.org]
(2022) Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come! [soylentnews.org]
(2017) Git 2.13 Released [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission