Source Control: Trust me on this – you do need it! The best tool is GIT – and it’s free   Add BitBucket (or GitHub) and your code will be backed-up and accessible from everywere.

Native GIT runs from a command prompt, so store your projects in a folder close to the root, e.g. C:\dev\projectname

Beware: To use GIT you must understand GIT – get the full story in this guide, or start with this tutorial

I use GIT on my own projects, making hourly commits and daily pushes to BitBucket. If I need to branch or merge code, I use the tools in BitBucket or GIT Extensions

FIrst-time installation and configuration

1. Download and install GIT (Installation guide)
2. Setup GIT – apply your username and email address by using these commands:

    $ git config --global user.name "John Doe"
    $ git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com
    

   or just manually update the .gitconfig file (in your local folder, e.g. C:\Users\$USER). My file looks like this

    [user]
    name = Jakob Majkilde
    email = jakob@majkilde.dk
    [http]
    proxy = http://80.254.148.90:8080
    [core]
    autocrlf = true
    excludesfile = c:/dev/.gitignore
    

   Notice: only the [user] is mandatory – other settings are optional

3. Add a .gitignore file to automatically exclude files that you do not want in your repository (e.g. .exe files or log files). Read the documentation for more info. I have my ignore file in my developement folder and made it global

Starting a new project

1. Open a command prompt, goto your project folder and type GIT init (this will create a hidden sub folder called .git)

Often used commands

• Add files: GIT add -A
• Commit: GIT commit -m “Type a message here”
• Status: GIT status
• Commit log: GIT Log

  git log --graph --pretty --oneline --abbrev-commit

Push to a remote repository (e.g.BitBucket)

• Connect: git remote add origin https://majkilde@bitbucket.org/majkilde/<project name>.git (url can be copied from your bitbucket repository)
• Push: git push -u origin master
• Pull: git pull origin master 

Links

• GIT Tutorial
• More .gitignore files
• Linus on GIT
• GIT GUI Clients
• A successful Git branching model
• Git-Flow: http://yakiloo.com/getting-started-git-flow/
• GIT in Lotus Domino: http://xpages.dk/?p=690