Howdy, hackers! My name is Alexander Shvets, I'm best known as the creator of Refactoring.Guru.
For the past 2.5 years, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of teaching dev tools directly inside the IDE. I started with Git, and after all this time, I think it’s finally looking great, and people seem to love it too.
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# Who is it for?
The course will be helpful as a great refresher or a solid starting point for three groups of people:
- Developers who already use Git, but mostly as a black box (e.g. you know how to clone/commit/push, but don't understand the difference between `reset`, `restore` or `revert`).
- Builders returning to code (PMs, designers, ex-devs) who now use AI tools for prototypes and internal tools, and need their Git muscles back.
- Hobby coders and beginners who want a practical, confidence-building path from zero to “I can work with Git.”
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# What makes it different?
I designed GitByBit as a modern way to learn Git (if we can still say so about a project that doesn't use AI). It's story based, you learn about everything gradually, one concept built upon another. It's is also hyper-focused on practice: building muscle memory for commands, using real Git, real IDE tools, etc.
That's possible because of the unique format: the course is integrated right into your code editor (assuming it's VS Code, Cursor, or any of the clones). It can also be run online via GitHub Codespaces. This format allows it to achieve some pretty cool things:
- Real Git, editor and terminal. You're always using real stuff! Once you finish the course, you're one shortcut away (Open New Window, Ctrl+Shift+N) from applying everything you've just learned about Git in your next project.
- Instant feedback. The course can check the results of your actions, explain errors, suggest workarounds, etc. You don't have to jump between a web page with instructions and the terminal, or search for explanations of cryptic Git errors. It's all in one place.
- Respects your time. The content is presented in bite-sized chunks, which helps you keep focus and stay engaged. No endless videos you have to sit through. The main course can be completed in one sitting, in an evening.
- Gitopedia. While progressing through the course, you build your personal in-editor Git reference, unlocking bits of supplemental material. They go into your personal knowledge base, a thing I called Gitopedia. You can pull up the Gitopedia as a separate tab in the editor, or arrange it to be opened in parallel at all times. It also serves as a map of what you've learned so far.
Dude, don't do it to yourself. Deep inside you know that you don't want it. That won't ever change, oh that inner voice will be even louder when you're exhausted.
There are 5 mini-tracks in the PRO version that let you practice more advanced and team based Git features. One of them let you do a full pull request workflow from making a fork to final merging.
Asuming that you have one of the editors installed already, you just install the extension and that's it. Technically, installing Git is also a part of the course, but most people also likely have it preinstalled.
All the versions—including the web version available through the gitbybit.com, as well the GitHub Codespaces version—all are compiled from the single source, which is a large React monorepo.
All the editors share the same VS Code internals and APIs, so once your extension works in VS Code, it'll likely work in other editors. The are different ways to distribute extensions for VS Code and clones, but that's a technical detail.
Design-wise, even if it's just VS Code, there are mutiple themes, dark modes, etc that may affect your content, so you have to keep reusing VS Code CSS styles and keep your own styling minimal so that the content look good on any crazy theme user might have installed. And on the web, you can carry VS Code theme variables to style things similarly to VS Code's base theme.
Sadly, in the same boat for the time being (https://refactoring.guru). My strategy was to deliver ad-free open valuable content for the devs, focus more on the content than marketing, but it all seems pointless now. Traffic is steadily declining, despite site is being first in search results.