Here is a confession: I used Git for a long time without really understanding what was going on. I knew all the basic commands, but I still got stranded when something went wrong. Why did my rebase fail? How did I manage to mess up the remote?

Then I found the key to Git: the content of the .git directory. Once I understood the underlying model, everything about Git clicked into place. Things that used to be baffling and complicated suddenly looked simple and elegant.

Let me share these insights with you.