Git is a distributed version control system.
A version control system tracks the changes made on file or set of files over period of time.
A Version Control System keeps track of :
- What change has been made (On Which file/location)
- When a change is made & log of all the changes that have been made over period of time
- Who made the change
- Why (To know the intent of making that change through commit comment)
Git is distributed : It means everyone who is collaborating, has copy of repository and it's history i.e. changes made over the time.
Why Git ?
Without git, one may have to manually keep track of all the versions and manually merge changes to single repository
Having a central codebase may result in single point of failure.
Git is most popular version control system because:
Its Free
Open Source
Super Fast [e.g. Branching & Merging]
Scalable