<story><title>Things I wish everyone knew about Git (Part I)</title><url>https://blog.plover.com/2022/06/29/#tips</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>skrebbel</author><text>Fwiw a branch isn&amp;#x27;t a named sequence of commits, it&amp;#x27;s just a label that points to a single commit. It&amp;#x27;s exactly the same as a tag except that git moves it when you make a new commit.&lt;p&gt;Mercurial calls these bookmarks which IMO is a much better name because it works exactly like real bookmarks (in books, not browsers). A git branch &lt;i&gt;feels&lt;/i&gt; a little bit like a branch of a tree because each commit points to their parent. Therefore, you don&amp;#x27;t need to track the entire sequence of commits in the branch but just the commit at the tip. I think if they&amp;#x27;d had named only this concept better, Git would&amp;#x27;ve been way easier to grok.&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t usually nitpick like this but given that the entire point of this article is it matters to get the basic concepts right, I figured the author might want to get this basic concept right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>HWR_14</author><text>Am I the only one sad that Git beat out Mercurial as the industry standard?&lt;p&gt;And am I also the only one who still knows how to do things in Mercurial but not how to take the corresponding action in Git? I mean, they&amp;#x27;re things I haven&amp;#x27;t had a reason to do in years, but it has some psychological cost to feel like I&amp;#x27;m using a system I&amp;#x27;m worse at.</text></comment>
<story><title>Things I wish everyone knew about Git (Part I)</title><url>https://blog.plover.com/2022/06/29/#tips</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>skrebbel</author><text>Fwiw a branch isn&amp;#x27;t a named sequence of commits, it&amp;#x27;s just a label that points to a single commit. It&amp;#x27;s exactly the same as a tag except that git moves it when you make a new commit.&lt;p&gt;Mercurial calls these bookmarks which IMO is a much better name because it works exactly like real bookmarks (in books, not browsers). A git branch &lt;i&gt;feels&lt;/i&gt; a little bit like a branch of a tree because each commit points to their parent. Therefore, you don&amp;#x27;t need to track the entire sequence of commits in the branch but just the commit at the tip. I think if they&amp;#x27;d had named only this concept better, Git would&amp;#x27;ve been way easier to grok.&lt;p&gt;I wouldn&amp;#x27;t usually nitpick like this but given that the entire point of this article is it matters to get the basic concepts right, I figured the author might want to get this basic concept right.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jsmith45</author><text>This is exactly the point the author plans to address under &amp;quot;Branches are fictitious&amp;quot;, in the outline at the top.</text></comment>