Chapter 1. Introduction
1.? Version control systems are no different. They all have nice interfaces to manage a directory of stuff. You can save the state of the directory every so often, and you can load any one of the saved states later on. Unlike most computer games, they’re usually smart about conserving space. Typically, only a few files change from version to version, and not by much. Storing the differences instead of entire new copies saves room.
2.? The new generation of version control systems, of which Git is a member, are known as distributed systems, and can be thought of as a generalization of centralized systems. Whendevelopers download from the main server they get every saved state, not just the latest one. It’s as if they’re mirroring the central server.
3.? A good first approximation is that anything a centralized version control system can do, a well-designed distributed system can do better.
4.? Version control systems handle the simpler conflcting cases themselves, and leave the difficult cases for humans. Usually their behaviour is configurable.
