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I fail to see how Git has a bad UX.. the way it took over other CVSs by storm suggest that those systems had UX that was significantly worse. In fact, I think y

by js8 10y ago

I fail to see how Git has a bad UX.. the way it took over other CVSs by storm suggest that those systems had UX that was significantly worse. In fact, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a recent piece of software which was a bigger success, UX-wise. Or why is Git popular, then? Could Github be built on, say, SVN? Many times in IT, popularity is also driven by support of a large corporation, but it was non-existent in this case.

sofal 10y ago
I think Git's success over solutions like CVS or SVN is the superiority of the underlying data model in its ability to take into account the complexity inherent in software being developed by multiple people at once, while at the same time allowing for individual developers to effortlessly fork their own various tasks.
- gkya 10y ago
  I guess git's success owes most to the Torvalds as mercurial was started contemporaneously and quite similar in being a DVCS.
ern 10y ago
git is popular because git is popular (and also because of the DVCS model). I'm pretty sure that it didn't win because of UX but because of network effects (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect). There are plenty of irrational decisions made by developers based on "geek cred" and status signaling. Regardless of the reason for its success, git has a huge installed base and plenty of online help to find one's way out of a corner. Having git skills is also a big plus for employability. I have migrated teams onto git rather than Mercurial solely for these reasons. UX was a secondary consideration.
- js8 10y ago
  So do you think Linus made a mistake writing Git and should have gone with Mercurial instead? I mean, the argument by popularity can apply to CVS and SVN too, which were at times more popular than Git.. I don't find it a very convincing explanation. Popularity could have been the reason why people chose Git over Mercurial specifically (if you're talking about DVCSs), but this kinda makes what Linus did a bad choice. What I am saying is if people chose inferior product (with worse UX) due to popularity or network effects, then this was a mistake, and you should be able to point out what exactly the mistake is.
  - ufo 10y ago
    IIRC git and mercurial were being developed around the same time at each other. And lots of git's design has to do with Linux-kernel workflows, which are quite peculiar.

by js8 10y ago

sofal 10y ago

I think Git's success over solutions like CVS or SVN is the superiority of the underlying data model in its ability to take into account the complexity inherent in software being developed by multiple people at once, while at the same time allowing for individual developers to effortlessly fork their own various tasks.

gkya 10y ago
I guess git's success owes most to the Torvalds as mercurial was started contemporaneously and quite similar in being a DVCS.

ern 10y ago

git is popular because git is popular (and also because of the DVCS model). I'm pretty sure that it didn't win because of UX but because of network effects (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect). There are plenty of irrational decisions made by developers based on "geek cred" and status signaling. Regardless of the reason for its success, git has a huge installed base and plenty of online help to find one's way out of a corner. Having git skills is also a big plus for employability. I have migrated teams onto git rather than Mercurial solely for these reasons. UX was a secondary consideration.

js8 10y ago
So do you think Linus made a mistake writing Git and should have gone with Mercurial instead? I mean, the argument by popularity can apply to CVS and SVN too, which were at times more popular than Git.. I don't find it a very convincing explanation. Popularity could have been the reason why people chose Git over Mercurial specifically (if you're talking about DVCSs), but this kinda makes what Linus did a bad choice. What I am saying is if people chose inferior product (with worse UX) due to popularity or network effects, then this was a mistake, and you should be able to point out what exactly the mistake is.
- ufo 10y ago
  IIRC git and mercurial were being developed around the same time at each other. And lots of git's design has to do with Linux-kernel workflows, which are quite peculiar.