This sounds hyperbolic but it's actually true. I learned about branching years ago but I still think I would have benefitted if I learned even earlier. Many other devs echoed this sentiment. Branching is among the highest ROI dev knowledge I've learned so far. At the meetup I run, I've been a branching evangelist to members that are studying or looking for jobs. I only recently found the branching scripture in the form of a Learning article published by Git Tower.
Branching is one of Git’s most powerful features – and this is not by accident: quick and easy branching was a central requirement from day one. Branches are the perfect tool to help you avoid mixing up different lines of development. You should use branches extensively in your development workflows: for new features, bug fixes, experiments, ideas…
Branching is like parallel universes for your Git repo. You can have as many as you. It's super easy to create and switch between them.
- Create a branch with
git branch branchName - Switch to that branch with
git checkout branchName - 📈 Profit by becoming a better developer that can easily surf the different parallel universes of their app, create new ones, delete useless ones, and merge them at will. Branching is OP.
- Go out and spread the good word about branching to any dev that isn't already using it.
The article is so well written and structured that instead of re-creating it here and trying to avoid plagiarism, I'd rather you read it in its original form.
The other articles in the Git Tower Learning series are also exceptional.
- Git Tower's Learn series