That Moment You See ‘Deleting…’ in Git Bash
Source: Dev.to
The Fear of Using Git Bash Too Early in Your Dev Journey
When I first started learning development about six months ago, Git Bash felt like stepping into a control room full of buttons I didn’t understand.
I had connected Git to my local VS Code environment and thought:
“Okay, this must be what developers use… I’ll just follow along.”
The problem was that I didn’t actually understand the commands I was running.
One day I ran a command in Git Bash and suddenly my terminal started printing lines that included words like “deleting.” My brain instantly went into panic mode.
I imagined not just deleting files in the repo, but deleting files in my actual Windows file system, inside my /htdocs/ folder. At that moment I realized something important about Git:
Git is powerful — but if you don’t understand what a command does, it can be terrifying.
I aborted the command as quickly as I could, but by then the damage had already started. For a few seconds I genuinely thought I had just lost my entire working project. Thankfully, I had a backup, so I restored everything and carried on.
That moment taught me three lessons that have stuck with me.
Lesson 1 — Git Isn’t Dangerous, Ignorance Is
Git commands can look intimidating because they operate at a very powerful level of your file system. When you see words like:
resetcleanrmdelete
…it feels like you’re about to destroy your project.
But Git isn’t the enemy. Running commands without understanding them is.
Once I slowed down and actually learned what commands like checkout, pull, and reset do, Git stopped feeling scary and started feeling like a safety net.
Lesson 2 — Always Backup Your Work
The real hero of that moment was my backup. If I hadn’t had one, I could have lost hours (or days) of work.
After that experience, I decided to automate the process. I created a small PowerShell script that automatically backs up my /htdocs/ folder, so I always have a copy of my working files. Now backups happen without me even thinking about them. That one small script removed an enormous amount of stress from my workflow.
Lesson 3 — Fear Is Part of the Learning Curve
Looking back, the fear I felt in that moment was actually part of the learning process. Every developer eventually reaches a point where they realize:
Tools like Git aren’t just version control — they’re power tools. And power tools require respect.
Once you understand them, they stop being scary and start being incredibly useful.
Final Advice for New Developers
If you’re just starting with Git:
- Don’t blindly copy commands from tutorials.
- Take time to understand what each command does.
- Always keep backups of your important work.
Because one day you will see the word “deleting” fly past in a terminal… and your heart will skip a beat.
Trust me on that.