I faced a moment like this, where I realised I needed git to survive a big set of changes. (Though I was on SVN before, which was better than nothing but a far cry from git).
However, branching may not be the ideal solution given how you describe your issue. With git branches, we typically dont want to run something then switch branches then run something else. I would say branches are primarily for organizing sets of changes over time.
If you have multiple datasets with similarities, what you may need more than git is refactoring and design patterns. To handle the common data in a common way, and then cleanly organize the differences.
That said I would still definitely want all scripts in git. It is not that hard to learn, lean on someone you know or email me if you need to.
However, branching may not be the ideal solution given how you describe your issue. With git branches, we typically dont want to run something then switch branches then run something else. I would say branches are primarily for organizing sets of changes over time.
If you have multiple datasets with similarities, what you may need more than git is refactoring and design patterns. To handle the common data in a common way, and then cleanly organize the differences.
That said I would still definitely want all scripts in git. It is not that hard to learn, lean on someone you know or email me if you need to.