Lets take this (obviously broken) analogy a bit further. Toothbrushing, as a skill, is learned early in life and passed over by generations. Best practices, su

Lets take this (obviously broken) analogy a bit further. Toothbrushing, as a skill, is learned early in life and passed over by generations. Best practices, such as in which order to brush the teeth and at which moments during the day we are supposed to use the brush, are repeatedly given during dentist visits, at schools and early in life. Reasons need to be given why to do it this way and these reasons involve some understanding of microbiology, sugary food and plaque. So, also with toothbrushing, it is important to RTFM. It is important to understand that the task at hand is extremely repetitive, does hardly require a mental model and is shared among all humans. Now, compare this with git. If I would start using an electric toothbrush without having any understanding of how to use it and what effects I'm trying to achieve, I would hardly be effective. Seeing the dentist bill after a long and painful visit, I would point out the advertisement: "helps prevent carries" and ask what all this toothbrushing is supposed to be about. I'm not saying the interface of git is intuitive or provides useful affordances. It can be improved. Nevertheless, using a distributed version control system is inherently a difficult task and requires a good understanding to prevent problems down the road. Just like plaque, microbiology and sugary food give a model for brushing, so do blobs, tree objects and commits a good model for (distributed) version control.