Boot.dev Blog

The Boot.dev Beat. April 2026

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

March was a monster month. We shipped the new DevOps learning path (18 DevOps courses!), 2 brand new courses, upgraded the in-browser Python coding experience, and made Boot.dev noticeably better on phones.

Git Rebase: Keep History Linear Without Merge Commits

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If git merge feels noisy, that’s because it can be. Lots of noisy merge commits make history harder to scan, especially when you’re just trying to understand what actually changed. git rebase takes a different approach: instead of creating a merge commit, it replays your branch commits on top of the latest base commit so your history stays clean and linear.

Git Remote: Add Origin, Fetch, and Merge Remote Branches

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Git is distributed, which means your repo and my repo can both be valid “sources of truth”. In practice, teams usually pick one remote as the shared source (often GitHub) and sync local work against it… but that’s just a convention. Let’s dig into how syncing Git repositories to GitHub works, and how that’s just one way to work with Git.

Git Reset: Undo Commits With --soft and --hard

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve ever made a commit and immediately thought “noooope”, then git reset is what you need. It’s one of the most useful Git commands for undoing work, but it’s also one of the easiest to misuse. The --soft version is usually safe and predictable. The --hard version is powerful and can absolutely nuke your local changes.

GitHub + Git: Push, Pull, and Pull Requests

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Git is the open-source command-line version control tool, and GitHub is basically just a collaboration on top of it. You can absolutely use Git without GitHub, but for most teams, GitHub (or something similar) is where a lot of the collaboration happens. Linus Torvalds created Git, and… well we don’t talk about who owns GitHub these days…

Gitignore Patterns: What to Ignore and Why

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Many devs adopt the git add . (yolo, just yeet it all into the commit) workflow. It is fast, simple, and usually correct. But eventually you’ll have files in your repo directory that should never be committed: secrets, generated artifacts, dependency folders, and random local junk. That’s what .gitignore is for.

Git Branching: Create, Switch, and Manage Branches

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A Git branch allows you to keep track of different changes separately. For example, you can create a new branch to experiment with changing a color scheme without affecting your primary branch. If you like the changes, you merge (or rebase) the branch back into main. If you don’t, you delete it.

Git Config: Set Your Name, Email, and Branch Defaults

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Git stores author information so that when you’re making a commit it can track who made the change. Here’s how all that configuration actually works.

Git for Beginners: Install It and Make Your First Commit

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Git is the distributed version control system (VCS). Nearly every developer in the world uses it to manage their code. It has quite a monopoly on VCS. Developers use Git to:

Git Internals: How Git Stores Data and History on Disk

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s take a look at some of git’s “plumbing”, that is, the commands that are mostly used for working “under-the-hood” with Git, and that you’ll only use if you’re trying to debug your Git files themselves.

Git Merge: Combine Branches and Understand Fast-Forwards

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

“What’s the point of having multiple branches?” you might ask. They’re most often used to safely make changes without affecting your (or your team’s) primary branch. Once you’re happy with your changes, you’ll want to merge them back into main so that they make their way into the final product.

Clean Code in Python: Write Readable, Maintainable Code