Why is git so successful? It has good internals and has had those good internals for years and years, which covered up for its many flaws. Add on to that: netwo

Why is git so successful? It has good internals and has had those good internals for years and years, which covered up for its many flaws. Add on to that: network effect due to linux, github, and gitlab all using git. Git is great, compared to most of the alternatives. But is it perfect? Of course not. Is it hugely flawed in parts? Of course it is. It has a UX designed by freaking engineers FFS, it's surprising it's as usable as it is. The observation that git forces you to learn how its guts work so that when you inevitably end up in some scary situation with the potential of losing or screwing up revision history you know enough to work your way out of it is not a strong argument. It's similar to the lament about how older cars were so much easier to work on and that made them better. Better if you want to work on cars, perhaps, but a vehicle that requires constant maintenance is not superior to today's cars that can be run for 100k miles with minimal engine work and a single set of spark plugs, and are also safer, more efficient, and cleaner to boot. The same thing goes for VCSes, if you're regularly, or ever, getting into hairy revision history problems that's a sign of a weakness in your VCS and/or workflow.