Foreword to the second edition

Welcome to the second edition of Git Essentials!

This paragraph is dedicated to those who have already read the first edition; here you will find an overview of the changes and new things inside this brand-new edition.

First of all, we listened to your feedback: in Chapters 2, Git Fundamentals - Working Locally and Chapter 3, Git Fundamentals - Working Remotely we will look at some technical details in more depth, describing more accurately the internals of Git; this entails extra effort on the part of the reader, but in return, he or she will obtain a more mindful understanding of Git architecture that will later help to grasp the commands of this powerful tool.

The Git ecosystem made some really giant steps forward since April 2015, but at its heart, Git is always the same. Here is an incomplete list of new features and improvements:

• Big improvements for Windows (for example, a fully working credential subsystem, performance enhancements, and so on—see https://github.com/git-for-windows/git).
• Git Large File Storage (LFS)-an additional tool from GitHub friends (see https://git-lfs.github.com).
• Git Virtual File System from Microsoft fellows (see https://github.com/Microsoft/GVFS).
• git worktree command and functionalities. Worktrees are a feature that was first included in Git 2.5; they let you check out and work on multiple repository branches in different directories simultaneously-see https://git-scm.com/docs/git-worktree.
• A lot of improvements and new options for common commands, too many to cite them all.

So the aim of this book is to get started with versioning and learn how to do it proficiently.

Let's start!