Git is a popular distributed versioning tool, but some commands have obscure syntax that is easy to get wrong, leading you into a mess that becomes a time drain

Git is a popular distributed versioning tool, but some commands have obscure syntax that is easy to get wrong, leading you into a mess that becomes a time drain. Creating a zip file of a git root folder takes seconds, and can get you out of the mess in seconds, rather than spending minutes or hours to undo some mess. If you can foresee git getting into a mess (and I can, after > 10 years of git experience), you can just take that backup to save time 'just in case' your git repo gets into that mess again. Changing the git commit history (for example because you made a commit under the wrong name/email address) in particular can cause huge headaches. Doing a git merge with tons of changes (think of clang-format white space changes in combination with various other commits) is another one. This is not about the specific cases where your git repo can become a mess, but more about having a simple safety mechanism to always get you out of the mess.