The first part of the visual git tutorial explains how to locally track project files with the git version control system. It shows how to add and commit changes, how to browse the history, revert changes and how to work with tags and branches.
iston eases your vendor branch management worries. A vendor branch is when you copy a vendor's code (plugins, gems, etc) inside your own repository / project.
What are the advantages of doing that?
* You don't depend on another repository to deploy to your staging or production machines;
* You are insulated from upstream changes, until you really want those changes and have a chance to test them;
* Piston allows you to apply local patches to your vendor code, until the upstream maintainers have applied them.