Having read "Git in Practice" and "Git for Teams", I was familiar with most of the content of this book. That said, I did learn some new bits in this book, e.g., git scripts. However, there two issues with this book. First, the way the code is typeset in book was a big obstacle to learn from the book. I hope PacktPub will improve their code typesetting schemes -- do not use the same font/color/styling for both commands and their outputs. Second, the exposition seemed hard to follow. Again, this is more an artifact of the format of Cookbooks from PacktPub. I'd rather they used a cookbook format (i.e., problem, solution, discussion) used by Oreilly and Manning publishers.

Git is one of those technologies that has been there since like forever and, for a developer, it is one of the the best things invented since sliced bread. Among the most widely used version control systems, it stands out for being distributed and for how easy it makes it to create, merge and destroy branches. The spotlight it deserves since years resulted in many blog posts introducing the technology, as well as in more advanced ones covering how to best use it depending on the size and distribution of a team. On top of this, it also resulted in many titles made available to us at any decent book store. While there are indeed tons of titles to choose from, only a very limited number of them are really outstanding and deserve the title of must have. Git Version Control Cookbook is the first book that tackles the subject with the winning problem-solution approach, and is thus a good candidate to be part of that short list.Before getting into the details of the book, which, spoiler, deserves some praise, a quick note: as the title itself suggests, it's a cookbook, not an introductory text. As such, it does not teach the reader what is Git and how to clone a remote repository. The reader is expected to have a good knowledge of Git and know by heart how to clone, branch, merge, fast-forward and tag, among other things.Spanning through some twelve chapters, this co-authored book is one of those that you won't finish in an afternoon. Not unless you simply walk quickly through the pages. This book, as typical of a cookbook, is best used when sitting in front of a terminal, with a coffee cup next to the keyboard and enough time to try out the examples, writing down precious notes. As a cookbook, it delivers. The authors follow the consolidated problem-solution approach and cover different subjects, ranging from the global configuration up to patching, passing through edgy topics such as rebasing. Each recipe follows a specific pattern: the problem is introduced; the solution is presented and then explained. Finally, each recipe ends with a paragraph where the authors extend the solution adding more flavors, redirecting the reader to either online resources or the man pages.Technically the book is well written, easy to follow (as long as the concepts are already known). Proofreaders did their job. While not all the recipes will be interesting to everyone, anyone, independently of his skills, will walk away learning something new. Among the concepts that I have particularly enjoyed is pruning. Very clear and exhaustive.Despite the many good things about this book, and the fact that overall is a good pick, there are a couple of things that I did not like: first, I think way too much time is dedicated to the configuration, which is something very basic; similarly, more often than not, the same recipe is presented twice, one solved with the terminal and one with a GUI, which is instead something that I would have added to that extra paragraph at the end of each recipe. Some recipe, moreover, felt way too edge case to happen in real life.Before tying it all up, a final note: this title, just like most of the other books covering Git out there, lacks something: presenting different real life scenarios where, based on the project, team and distribution, we are presented with guidelines and best strategies to model branches and deliveries. But maybe this would deserve a book on its own.A very good book, no doubts. While not outstanding, it definitely serves well anyone working with Git.As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: http://books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!

I thought I was great with Git, until I read this book. It made me realize I have a lot to learn and encouraged me to do so. If you already know Git and want to push yourself to the next level, I can definitely recommend this book. I already applied some of the techniques described in the book at my company to improve our work flow and all the developers love it.It's not the book you should get if you're new to Git of version control systems. There are no deep explanations to the techniques and the authors seem to assume you've worked with the command line and Git before. So if that's you, and you want to get better, then this is the book for you.