Best Git book for a noob

Question

I am a complete noob when it comes to working with Git and Github. I have been using Subversion professionally for a few years. I am trying to decide between the Pro Git book or the Pragmatic Version Control with Git. Which is considered better? Should I just read both? Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Pro Git can be read online and is an excellent resource. Haven't read the other one, but Pro Git seems to covers it all for me.

Answer 2

I find the Pro Git book more accessible and detailed, especially for a first installation and usage.
The illustrations are better and clearer.

Its section on transport protocol and the following sections helped me for my first Git server.

Its section on Git attributes is an example of great illustration (for the filter driver)

Answer 3

There's an abundance of git resources online, I would look on the interweb first.

Answer 4

I've got Pragmatic Version Control with Git. It's OK, not especially great, though. If I were to buy another book, I'd definitely be getting Pro Git

Answer 5

You might also consider O'Reilly's Version Control with Git. I got it for an earlier job where I had to learn Git quickly. It looked better than the Pragmatic book and I don't remember Pro Git as an option, so it probably wasn't out yet.

I found the O'Reilly book helpful. I read through the first few chapters to learn the basics, and then skipped around when I needed to learn something new. While it didn't matter for me on that previous job, it does have a chapter on using Git with Subversion repositories.

Answer 6

I know it's not a book, but I found the Gitcasts website to be extremely helpful when I was starting out with Git - plenty of free videos on many of the important concepts and is essential viewing in my opinion

you can't beat a good book though and it looks like some people have given some decent advice on that front already so good luck with it all