Visual Studio 2012 integration with Git is great news for the developer community - not only for the enthusiasts of Open Code but for any team looking for a solid source code management (SCM) system.

Git was initially designed and developed by Linus Torvalds for Linux Kernel Development in 2005. Git was designed as a set of programs written in C, and a number of shell scripts that provide wrappers around those programs. From its initial design approach, Git has developed the full set of features expected of a traditional SCM with features mostly being created as needed, then refined and extended over time. Today, Git is very popular among Eclipse users and with the Visual Studio 2012 integration; it has a promising future for Visual Studio developers as well.

Git supports rapid branching and merging, and includes specific tools for visualising and navigating a non-linear development history. Linus has described Git as being very fast and scalable. In particular, Git does not get slower as the project history grows larger.

There are many websites providing free source code hosting for Git repositories. CodePlex and GitHub are two very popular ones to the .NET developer’s community.  With this integration, Visual Studio users can now use GitHub to host and manage their projects. Microsoft won’t kill off its own proprietary centralised version control system in favour of Git, but the open source solution will become a native part of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server.

If you’d like more information to help get you started with Git in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server, take a look at this Microsoft Blog, a great resource with useful tips, tricks and downloads!