The phenomenon of checking out is quite interesting. You (usually) check out your luggage from a hotel room; you (most of the times) tell your friend: "Dude, check out my new Phablet"; you (are hesitant to) check out code from version control. What exactly does checking out mean? This seems more like a buzz word... checkout, checkout, and checkout!
Context is what you need to understand. The meaning of a word changes with a change in context. In the current context, you need to do what you are hesitant to do. Thus, checking out code is a phenomenon provided for version control systems, in which you take out the latest versions of the code base and download it onto your development computer. This download is not merely a simple download, it provides you with the latest version of code available under version control and makes you aware of the list of changes that have been made to the code base up until the current date. Thus, when you...