8 ms·

> Given all these great options, it's not clear to me why anyone would go back to a separate GUI tool? You're clearly a Linux person. Or at least a command lin

> Given all these great options, it's not clear to me why anyone would go back to a separate GUI tool? You're clearly a Linux person. Or at least a command line person. I am too. Quite a few programmers at my work have never used anything but Windows and barely touch any servers. So they don't really use the command line at all, ever. They also insist on using graphical clients for Git. This is of course horribly inefficient and leads to plenty of problems (mostly due to their choice of the Eclipse Git Client, which seems to have a lot of bugs). But they think the command line is scary and too difficult to understand. So, my point is, there are a lot of people who have used GUIs their entire life and are used to be able to figure things out by just staring at the GUI and spending 30 minutes aimlessly clicking about. Then when they use a CLI program they have no idea what to do, and get frustrated. Because they're not used to RTFM.

bytelayer 10y ago
What's wrong with GitHub Desktop? Just enter your commit message and click "Sync". Much easier than using the command line.
- tokenizerrr 10y ago
  We don't use GitHub and looking at https://desktop.github.com/ https://desktop.github.com/ it's not a Git client, but a GitHub client.
  - Rafert 10y ago
    It's a git client: https://help.github.com/desktop/faq/articles/do-you-support-hosts-other-than-github/ https://help.github.com/desktop/faq/articles/do-you-support-...
    - tokenizerrr 10y ago
      Ah ok, I'll let my Eclipse Git coworkers know about this. Shame there isn't a Linux version or I could give it a go myself to see how it compares. I assume it does branching well.
- coredog64 10y ago
  I recommend GitHub Desktop to most of my coworkers that come to me with git problems. It's nice in that it also installs a command line version of git that I use with Powershell. In that sense it is useful because they can grow into power users should the need arise.
k__ 10y ago
I found it even strange for a Windows app. Look at the Session GUI. You can click on a list of saved sessions, but they won't show up in the input configs at the top till you press load, but if you doubleclick on them a new session is started.
- tokenizerrr 10y ago
  > Look at the Session GUI. You can click on a list of saved sessions, but they won't show up in the input configs at the top till you press load, but if you doubleclick on them a new session is started. Of all things, I don't think that is a bad design choice. I would get really annoyed if all the changes I've made in the different tabs were to disappear because I happened to click on one of the already existing sessions in the list. Perhaps because I'd want to update it.
egeozcan 10y ago
We wanted to switch to Git from Mercurial because we wanted something like Gitlab. The only reason we didn't was that there wasn't any app for Git which was as user-friendly as TortoiseHg.
- sk5t 10y ago
  Tower is quite nice, in late beta for Windows.
  - egeozcan 10y ago
    This looks even cleaner than TortoiseHg and that's an achievement! Thank you. I guess it wasn't available when we first looked.
- efraim 10y ago
  Have a look at Gitkraken - https://www.gitkraken.com/features https://www.gitkraken.com/features
- WayneBro 10y ago
  There is TortoiseGit!
  - kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
    Which pales in comparison to the multi-platform goodness of TortoiseHg since it is an independent creation designed from the ground up for the distributed workflow rather than a reworked TortoiseSVN. I wish someone would do a Git conversion of THG.
    - WayneBro 10y ago
      Besides not being cross platform, how does it pale in comparison? I've been using it for over five years and I can't imagine what it could possibly be missing...
  - Too 10y ago
manyxcxi 10y ago
I use the command line for the majority of my day and I still use a Git GUI (Tower for Mac) because in one single window I have all my repositories traversable, I can instantly see what is changing, and get a diff of a file in one click without leaving the window. For any commit/merge/push/pull standard maneuvers (probably 99.8%) I do, Tower is faster. Anything 'complicated' and I'm using git in the command line. But I do agree about the Eclipse git client. It's the worst client I think I have ever seen. Every dev I know that relies on it regularly finds away to bork their local version or to screw up the central repository on a regular enough basis that it's not even a surprise anymore.
SOLAR_FIELDS 10y ago
How can you survive as a developer without at least passing familiarity with the command line? This is worrisome indeed.
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
>Quite a few programmers at my work have never used anything but Windows and barely touch any servers. So they don't really use the command line at all, ever. >They also insist on using graphical clients for Git. This is of course horribly inefficient and leads to plenty of problems (mostly due to their choice of the Eclipse Git Client, which seems to have a lot of bugs). But they think the command line is scary and too difficult to understand. I still find it hard to believe that there are people like this out there. You're a programmer! You write in programming languages all day, but you think at a new language, a relatively simple one used by thousands of people who aren't professional programmers, will be hard to learn. I guess Steve Yegge was right. Programmers really do hate learning new languages.
- wott 10y ago
  There are many people who are completely lost without an IDE, or even without their IDE. Some of them have no idea of what is going on underneath. It is not rare to read such people around here.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    That's... terrifying. I mean, I am often in awe of my own staggering ignorance, but at least I'm doing something about it. I hazily know how CPUs work (more or less), I understand why cache misses matter (now: thanks HN). I understand the basics of Big O, what kinds of functions are computable, and why O(n^2) or O(n!) is really bad. I know some common algorithms for simple problems, and I know how to recognize the Travelling Salesman when I see it. That's not all that I know, not by a long shot, but I know that what I know is a tiny drop in the ocean of what I don't. It's just baffling that there are people out there, likely older than me, who aren't actively trying to learn more. I mean, if you don't like computing enough to be motivated to learn more about it, why are you in the industry?
- oblio 10y ago
  Those people are the majority (or at least a large plurality). Quit your job as a game dev/web dev at a large software vendor/startup and join the enterprise Java/.NET devs working on middleware and be amazed at how scared they are of anything outside of the IDE.
mastazi 10y ago
At work there are a few devs like that. I should specify that they are really good developers, and they are certainly able to work "the Linux way" if they have to, it's just that they are more comfortable using GUIs and "fat" IDEs rather than a CLI + a "lean" text editor. Still, I am convinced that, for advanced users, CLI wins over GUI. Even outside of the sw dev world, I see many professionals (e.g. graphic designers) who, in order to increase productivity, learn so many keyboard shortcuts that they end up using their keyboard more than their mouse: in my mind, I see that as a "CLI-zation" of the GUI. Another point is ease of sharing: with CLI-based work-flows, you can just write down everything in the company wiki, all is just text. The thought of having to take screenshots in order to describe a work-flow to a colleague (vs. just writing down commands) drives me mad.

bytelayer 10y ago

What's wrong with GitHub Desktop? Just enter your commit message and click "Sync". Much easier than using the command line.

tokenizerrr 10y ago
We don't use GitHub and looking at https://desktop.github.com/ https://desktop.github.com/ it's not a Git client, but a GitHub client.
- Rafert 10y ago
  It's a git client: https://help.github.com/desktop/faq/articles/do-you-support-hosts-other-than-github/ https://help.github.com/desktop/faq/articles/do-you-support-...
  - tokenizerrr 10y ago
    Ah ok, I'll let my Eclipse Git coworkers know about this. Shame there isn't a Linux version or I could give it a go myself to see how it compares. I assume it does branching well.
coredog64 10y ago
I recommend GitHub Desktop to most of my coworkers that come to me with git problems. It's nice in that it also installs a command line version of git that I use with Powershell. In that sense it is useful because they can grow into power users should the need arise.

k__ 10y ago

I found it even strange for a Windows app. Look at the Session GUI. You can click on a list of saved sessions, but they won't show up in the input configs at the top till you press load, but if you doubleclick on them a new session is started.

tokenizerrr 10y ago
> Look at the Session GUI. You can click on a list of saved sessions, but they won't show up in the input configs at the top till you press load, but if you doubleclick on them a new session is started. Of all things, I don't think that is a bad design choice. I would get really annoyed if all the changes I've made in the different tabs were to disappear because I happened to click on one of the already existing sessions in the list. Perhaps because I'd want to update it.

egeozcan 10y ago

We wanted to switch to Git from Mercurial because we wanted something like Gitlab. The only reason we didn't was that there wasn't any app for Git which was as user-friendly as TortoiseHg.

sk5t 10y ago
Tower is quite nice, in late beta for Windows.
- egeozcan 10y ago
  This looks even cleaner than TortoiseHg and that's an achievement! Thank you. I guess it wasn't available when we first looked.
efraim 10y ago
Have a look at Gitkraken - https://www.gitkraken.com/features https://www.gitkraken.com/features
WayneBro 10y ago
There is TortoiseGit!
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  Which pales in comparison to the multi-platform goodness of TortoiseHg since it is an independent creation designed from the ground up for the distributed workflow rather than a reworked TortoiseSVN. I wish someone would do a Git conversion of THG.
  - WayneBro 10y ago
    Besides not being cross platform, how does it pale in comparison? I've been using it for over five years and I can't imagine what it could possibly be missing...
- Too 10y ago

manyxcxi 10y ago

I use the command line for the majority of my day and I still use a Git GUI (Tower for Mac) because in one single window I have all my repositories traversable, I can instantly see what is changing, and get a diff of a file in one click without leaving the window. For any commit/merge/push/pull standard maneuvers (probably 99.8%) I do, Tower is faster. Anything 'complicated' and I'm using git in the command line. But I do agree about the Eclipse git client. It's the worst client I think I have ever seen. Every dev I know that relies on it regularly finds away to bork their local version or to screw up the central repository on a regular enough basis that it's not even a surprise anymore.

SOLAR_FIELDS 10y ago

How can you survive as a developer without at least passing familiarity with the command line? This is worrisome indeed.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

>Quite a few programmers at my work have never used anything but Windows and barely touch any servers. So they don't really use the command line at all, ever. >They also insist on using graphical clients for Git. This is of course horribly inefficient and leads to plenty of problems (mostly due to their choice of the Eclipse Git Client, which seems to have a lot of bugs). But they think the command line is scary and too difficult to understand. I still find it hard to believe that there are people like this out there. You're a programmer! You write in programming languages all day, but you think at a new language, a relatively simple one used by thousands of people who aren't professional programmers, will be hard to learn. I guess Steve Yegge was right. Programmers really do hate learning new languages.

wott 10y ago
There are many people who are completely lost without an IDE, or even without their IDE. Some of them have no idea of what is going on underneath. It is not rare to read such people around here.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  That's... terrifying. I mean, I am often in awe of my own staggering ignorance, but at least I'm doing something about it. I hazily know how CPUs work (more or less), I understand why cache misses matter (now: thanks HN). I understand the basics of Big O, what kinds of functions are computable, and why O(n^2) or O(n!) is really bad. I know some common algorithms for simple problems, and I know how to recognize the Travelling Salesman when I see it. That's not all that I know, not by a long shot, but I know that what I know is a tiny drop in the ocean of what I don't. It's just baffling that there are people out there, likely older than me, who aren't actively trying to learn more. I mean, if you don't like computing enough to be motivated to learn more about it, why are you in the industry?
oblio 10y ago
Those people are the majority (or at least a large plurality). Quit your job as a game dev/web dev at a large software vendor/startup and join the enterprise Java/.NET devs working on middleware and be amazed at how scared they are of anything outside of the IDE.

mastazi 10y ago

At work there are a few devs like that. I should specify that they are really good developers, and they are certainly able to work "the Linux way" if they have to, it's just that they are more comfortable using GUIs and "fat" IDEs rather than a CLI + a "lean" text editor. Still, I am convinced that, for advanced users, CLI wins over GUI. Even outside of the sw dev world, I see many professionals (e.g. graphic designers) who, in order to increase productivity, learn so many keyboard shortcuts that they end up using their keyboard more than their mouse: in my mind, I see that as a "CLI-zation" of the GUI. Another point is ease of sharing: with CLI-based work-flows, you can just write down everything in the company wiki, all is just text. The thought of having to take screenshots in order to describe a work-flow to a colleague (vs. just writing down commands) drives me mad.