lesson_2_reflections.txt

What happens when you initialize a repository? Why do you need to do it?

git creates an empty repository folder

How is the staging area different from the working directory and the repository? What value do you think it offers?

It contains the changes you want to commit. It allows you to collect a set of changes to be committed separately to making the changes.

What are some situations when branches would be helpful in keeping your history organized? How would branches help?

When working on multiple streams of changes. when making changes that you don't want to affect the master yet.

How do the diagrams help you visualize the branch structure?

You can see the parent of each commit, and unreachable commits

What is the result of merging two branches together? Why do we represent it in the diagram the way we do?

To see which changes were made in which branch an highlight which changes may have introduced dependencies that need to be updated for a merge

What are the pros and cons of Git’s automatic merging vs. always doing merges manually?

Pro: Automatic merging can handle simple cases automatically and highlight the more complicated cases. 

Con: the simple merge strategy can sometimes be incorrect. When merge conflicts occur, changes pmerged with a simple merge strategy could also be impacted.