What I believe is the most confusing thing for git beginners is that the main commands have multiple uses depending on the arguments or context, and some of those uses aren't well-described by the command's name.
- merges together different branches (different histories, to be more exact)
- fast-forwards if a merge isn't necessary; effectively repositioning the branch head to a descendant commit
- unwanted outcome of
git pull
- replays a set of commits as if they were based off another parent
- interactively used for history cleanup: reorder & squash related commits
- should be used for
git pullinstead of merge
- resets (unstages) changes added to the index; undoes
git add - repositions the branch head to another commit; optionally resetting index & working tree
- undo a commit, either discarding changes or keeping them for the next commit
- discard all working copy changes since the last commit
- switch branches
- create a new branch and switch to it
- checkout a file or directory as it were in another commit
- discard all working copy changes since the last commit
- resolve merge conflicts
Thank you