Plurrrr

David Beazley thought that “JavaScript versus Data Science” would be a better title for this book. While that one word sums up how many people view the language, we hope we can convince you that modern JavaScript is usable as well as useful. Scientists and engineers are who we were thinking of when we wrote this book but we hope that these lessons will also help librarians, digital humanists, and everyone else who uses computing in their research.

Git was created by Linus Torvalds out of a need. At the time the Linux Kernel team was using a proprietary Distributed Source Control Management (DSCM) system. However, due to licensing issues the Linux Kernel team could no longer use this proprietary DSCM system. Therefore, Linus decided to build Git as the DSCM system he always wished they had.

You might also know Linus as the creator of Linux. In fact, Linus still manages the Linux Kernel today. As of 2020, the Linux kernel had over 27.8 million lines of code spread across ~66 thousand files from ~21 thousand different contributors. It has continued to be successfully developed, maintained, and extended since it was publicly announced in 1991. It is also worth noting that Git itself, another large, successful open source project, is managed in the same way.

So there must be some useful insights around long term software development and maintenance practices we can glean by looking at how Linus and his team use Git for their development and peer review workflows.