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Hectal
Phase 2Intermediate3 of 9 in Git

Branching & Merging

Branches are just movable pointers — understanding that one fact demystifies merging, conflicts, and the rebase-vs-merge debate entirely.

Nearly every confusing Git moment traces back to a misunderstanding of what a branch actually IS. This phase fixes that at the source, then builds up through merging, real conflict resolution, and interactive rebase — the tools that make working on more than one thing at once actually manageable.

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4 topics ~57 min 8 code blocks & diagrams
Start with the first topic
1
2.1

Branches: What They Actually Are

A branch is nothing more than a movable pointer to a single commit — not a copy of the project, not a separate folder — and that one fact is the key to everything else in this phase.

14 min 1 diagram 1 code practice

2
2.2

Merging & Resolving Merge Conflicts

Merging brings two branches' histories together into one — and a conflict is simply Git honestly telling you it found two changes to the exact same lines it can't safely combine on its own.

14 min 1 diagram 1 code practice

3
2.3

Rebase vs Merge, Explained Properly

Merge preserves history exactly as it happened; rebase rewrites it into a cleaner, linear story — neither is universally 'correct,' and knowing the actual trade-off matters more than picking a side in the debate.

14 min 1 diagram 1 code practice

4
2.4

Interactive Rebase: Squash, Reorder, and Edit History

git rebase -i opens an editable list of your recent commits, letting you squash messy ones together, reorder them, reword messages, or drop them entirely — the tool for turning a messy work-in-progress history into a clean, reviewable one.

15 min 1 diagram 1 code practice