Backup your Database in Git | Viget Extend
http://www.viget.com/extend/backup-your-database-in-git/

When you think about it, a database dump is just SQL code, so why not manage it the same way you manage the rest of your code — in a source code manager? Setting such a scheme up is dead simple. On your production server, with git installed:

This article introduces version control and Git without assuming you have any prior knowledge or programming experience. Because of its introductory nature, certain details are simplified or omitted and the use of the Git Graphical User Interface (Git GUI) is emphasized. Version control is the process of recording the history of changes to files as they are modified. Users can go back in time and get old versions and identify where changes were introduced (people sometimes refer to version control tools as time machines). This means that it’s easier to: * protect against changes—accidental or otherwise—and be able to access a known good version of a file * track down problems and make fixes to previous versions of files * allow more than one person to modify project files simultaneously (programmers refer to this as parallel development) * retrieve an older set of files (if requested by a customer or manager, for example)

Good advice on branches for web development (production, release, maintenance, etc).

How to set upand use GIT

introduction intro to git

This article introduces version control and Git without assuming you have any prior knowledge or programming experience. Because of its introductory nature, certain details are simplified or omitted and the use of the Git Graphical User Interface (Git GUI) is emphasized. Afterwards the reader should be able to use Git for basic version control and know where to locate further information.

Pretty decent intro to mercurial, clear and well written. Does dabble a bit on differences to svn as well.

Source Control HOWTO

Our universities often don't teach people how to do source control. We graduate with Computer Science degrees. We know more than we'll ever need to know about discrete math, artificial intelligence and the design of virtual memory systems. But many of us enter the workforce with no knowledge of how to use any of the basic tools of software development, including bug-tracking, unit testing, code coverage, source control, or even IDEs.