Re: [PATCH 2/2] doc: add new Git tutorial for beginners

["Julia Evans" <julia@jvns.ca>]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2026, at 12:49 PM, Ben Knoble wrote:
>> Le 19 oct. 2026 à 10:25, Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca> a écrit :
>
> Acknowledging the original was a long email to begin with,
>
>>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2026, at 3:48 PM, D. Ben Knoble wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Oct 6, 2026 at 3:37 PM Julia Evans via GitGitGadget
>>>> <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> +[[step_2]]
>>>> +Step 2: Introduce yourself to Git
>>>> +---------------------------------
>>>> +
>>>> +The first time you use Git on a computer, it's a good idea to tell Git
>>>> +your name and public email address. If you don't, you'll get a lot of
>>>> +warnings from Git. To do this, run:
>>>> +
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>>> +$ git config --global user.name "Namey McName"
>>>> +$ git config --global user.email you@example.com
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>>> +
>>>> +The name and email is so that other people you're collaborating with can
>>>> +know who made the changes. You can set them to anything you want.
>>>> +
>>>> +To check if the name and email have been set, you can run these
>>>> +commands:
>>>> +
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>>> +$ git config user.name
>>>> +$ git config user.email
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>> Ought we recommend the newer forms (git config set, git config get)?
>>> Or is the idea to remain compatible with older versions, such as the
>>> 2.32 I happen to have in /usr/bin on unsupported macOS 12.7.6 from
>>> very old (?) XCode?
>
> I think this got missed?

It did! Because of the plain text emails it's tough for me to scan the >> and >
to see the replies (">>" and ">" look similar to me) so I missed them, I don't
know if it's possible to set up my email system to make it easier.

I didn't know about `git config set`, I put it on my list to think about. I
claimed at some point in this tutorial that it works on "any version above
2.0", which is a claim I didn't actually check yet, but I do think it's valuable to
support old versions and be explicit about which Git versions you can use the
tutorial with.

>>>> +
>>>> +Set your default branch name to `main`, by running this command.
>>>> +Git is going to change its default branch name to `main` soon, so this
>>>> +sets you up well for the future.
>>>> +
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>>> +$ git config --global init.defaultBranch main
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>>> +
>>>> +If there's no output, then it succeeded.
>>>> +
>>>> +Step 3: Create an empty folder and 2 files
>>>> +------------------------------------------
>>>> +
>>>> +In your terminal, create an empty folder and change directories into it.
>>>> +Later on you could follow the same steps in this tutorial to take an
>>>> +existing project and start managing it with Git, but we're going to use
>>>> +an empty project so that everyone following this tutorial has the exact
>>>> +same files.
>>>> +
>>>> +For example, run these commands to make a folder called `myproject`
>>>> +
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>>> +$ mkdir myproject
>>>> +$ cd myproject
>>>> +------------------------------------------------
>>> I don't know, and I'll probably bias towards what you've already
>>> written over asking for changes, but: does it make things any easier
>>> to read and follow along with if we "git init myproject" instead?
>>> Perhaps this version plants the seed that it's not too late to start
>>> tracking any existing project, though, which is valuable :)
>>> I wonder if you had some rationale for choosing this particular
>>> sequence? Just curious, now.
>
> And so was this.

I didn't see this one either :)

I had no idea `git init myproject` existed! I do think it's nice to
make it more obvious how you could start tracking an existing project.

> Both are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things, so I’ll treat 
> silence as « not interesting right now » and not be offended ;)
>
>> Thanks for the review!
>
> You’re quite welcome!