This chapter is a collection of resources I built during my experience with Git. I will share some thoughts about GUI tools, web interfaces with Git repositories, and learning resources, hoping they will act as a springboard for a successful Git career.
When beginning to learn a new tool, especially a wide and complex one like Git, it can be useful to take advantage of some GUI tools that are able to picture commands and patterns in a way that is more simple to understand.
Git benefits from a wide range of GUI tools, so it's only a matter of choice. I want to tell you right away that there is no perfect tool, as frequently happens, but there are enough of them to pick the one that fits your needs better.
As a Microsoft .NET developer, I use Windows 99 percent of the time. In spare time, I play a little bit with Linux, but in that case I prefer to use the command line. In this section, you will find tools I use or I have used in the past, while in the other platform section I will provide only some hints based on words of other people.
Git has an integrated GUI, as we learnt from the previous chapters. Probably, it is not one of the most eye-catching solution you will find, but for small issues it can be enough. The reason for using it is that it is already installed when you install Git, and that it is well integrated even with the command prompt; so for blaming files, see history or interactive merging can be fired easily (just type git gui <command> on your shell). But I have to come clean: I don't like it much.
In Windows, Git GUI will be installed following the language or the region you specified on Windows. What's the problem? Well, the problem is that in non-English languages, they translate everything - even command names! In Italian, instead of merge I see Fusione; pushing gets translated as Propaga; and untracked files become Modifiche non preparate. The problem is not the translation itself, but simply that I find translating concepts or command names (like even Windows and other Microsoft tools did in the past) perplexing; it is confusing and counterproductive.
If you have migrated from using Subversion to using Git, you have probably already heard about TortoiseSVN, a well-crafted tool for dealing with Subversion commands directly from Explorer, through the right-click shell integration.
TortoiseGit brings Git, instead of Subversion, to the same place. By installing TortoiseGit, you will benefit from the same Explorer integration, leaving most Git commands only a step away from you. Even if I discourage you to use localized versions, TortoiseGit is available in different languages. Also, bear in mind that you need to install Git in advance as it is not included in the TortoiseGit setup package.
GitHub offers a stylish Modern UI based client. I have to admit that I snubbed it at first, mostly because I was sure that I could use it only for GitHub repositories. However, I realized that one can use it even with other remotes, but it's clear that the client is tailored for GitHub. To use other remotes, you have to edit the config file by hand, substituting the GitHub remote with the one you want.
If you want a general purpose client, probably this is not the best tool for you; but if you work mostly on GitHub, it may likely be the best GUI in the market.
This is my favorite client. SourceTree is free like all the other tools; it comes from the mind of Atlassian, the well-known company behind Bitbucket and other popular services like Jira, Confluence, and Stash. SourceTree can handle all kinds of remotes, offering facilities (like remembering passwords) to access the most popular services like Bitbucket and GitHub.
It embeds the GitFlow way of organizing repositories by design, offering a convenient button to initialize a repository with GitFlow branches, and integrating GitFlow commands provided by the author. The most interesting thing I found at first was that you can enable a window where SourceTree shows the equivalent Git command when you use some of Git commands by user interface; in this manner, when you doubt you can remember the right command for the job, you can use SourceTree to accomplish your task and see what commands it uses to get the work done.
Cmder is not really a Git GUI, but a nicer portable console emulator you can use instead of the classic Bash shell:
It looks nicer than the original shell; it has multi-tab support and a wide set of configuration options to let you customize it as you prefer, thanks to ConEmu and Clink projects. Finally yet importantly, it comes with Git embedded. You can download it from GitHub at https://github.com/bliker/cmder.
As I already said, I have no experience with Mac OS X Git clients; the only information I can share with you is that GitHub offers its client for free, even for Mac, like it does Atlassian with SourceTree. There is no TortoiseGit for Mac, but I have heard about a cool app called Git Tower. Please consider giving it a try as it seems very well crafted.
Another great tool is SmartGit, available for free for open-source projects: http://www.syntevo.com/smartgit/
Linux is the reason for Git, so I think that it is the best place to work with Git. I play with Linux now and then, and I usually use the Bash shell for Git.
For the ZSH shell lover, I suggest looking at http://ohmyz.sh/, an interesting open source project where you can find tons of plugins and themes. About plugins, there are some of them that let you enhance your Git experience with this famous alternate console.