Note to self: bash and git setup

Some notes on my bash and git setup

As much as I like IntelliJ and its git integration, it makes me feel like I'm just dealing with the tip of the git-iceberg. So I like to try and use the command line as much as possible as a way to increase my understanding of git and all the mad-clever things it can do. That's led me to want command line completion, including for git-flow, (and if you're not using git-flow, why? ;-) visibility of what branch I'm on in my prompt and a few aliases and other configuration items to make things easier. It's actually not all that much but it's made a big difference to me.

Here's what the salient parts of my ~/.bash_profile and ~/.gitconfig look like:


The git ls alias is a succinct answer to, "What's been committed lately?" at a high level. It simply lists the hash, how long ago it was committed, by whom and the commit message. I find it useful with --no-merges (which unsurprisingly omits merge commits from the output) and --author=<author> to limit things to just my work. It helps you answer the questions, "When did I commit feature X?" and "What did do lately?" The git ll variation gives a little more detail by listing the files changed along with an indication of the type and size of change. Useful when the commit message alone doesn't help me answer "What did I do lately?" ;-)

Spending more time in a console made me want to be more adept at editing commands here too; I had for years made do with Home and End and the arrow keys. I even increased my key repeat rate to speed up moving back to correct errors with the left-arrow key. Now I've added the couple things I really needed to improve things:

• Enabling vi mode; I knew about this, but hadn't found myself on the command line quite enough to care about it until recently. (Vi is another thing like to "make" myself use just because proficiency in it just seems to really pay dividends).
• Figuring out how to navigate back and forward one word at a time while editing a command -- crucial for crazy long commands

All that's required is a few lines in your ~/.inputrc file: