git rebase /home/you us

(That's "all your base are belong to us" in git-speak)
I think I am starting to get the hang of git.

The key is not to think of "versions" of the codebase, but rather, in terms of "patches". Git is not "version control" it is "patch management".

The rebase command is an excellent example of this, and it is really unusual and powerful (which can make it dangerous).

The best thing about it, is that it allows you to avoid the "shoulda syndrome".

For example, imagine you are working on a new feature. You spot a bug, and fix it on the spot.

In cvs or subversion, you have violated the "shoulda" policy dictated by these tools. You "shoulda" put your current changes somewhere else (or used a new area, I have about 4 local copies of my svn work project).

Now, in order to commit just the fix, you are going to have a lot of pain and suffering to split things out, test it, and commit it, then merge back.

But in git, there is no "shoulda". You can fix that bug, and carry on with life.

How so?

First, you need to get all your changes into patches. Use "add -i" (interactive) to get everything in (add interactive allows you to commit individual lines from a file, if necessary). Then you can use branches to test just the patches you want to commit.

The real power comes from rebase.

Rebasing is confusing (and potentially dangerous), because it allows you to edit the history of the repo.

It is also two different commands in one.

The first command is plain rebase (git rebase <relativeHead>). This is used in place of "git pull" to update a working branch (keeping it relative to that branch, rather than merging).

The second command is editing history (git rebase -i <relativeHead>). This allows you to shuffle the order of patches, and merge patches.

So if the patches to your working area are:
trunk
Start of new feature
Additional feature
More stuff
Bug fix

You can shuffle the bug fix up to right after the branch from the trunk. You can then push that patch into the trunk. Your working area is clean, and you don't have to bother the trunk with all your intermediate commits.