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Error messages that are confusing. Which ones? I have found them helpful, suggesting the right possible commands to use to solve a problem. Requiring that th

by Xurinos 16y ago

Error messages that are confusing. Which ones? I have found them helpful, suggesting the right possible commands to use to solve a problem. Requiring that the user knows a fair number of options to commands. Which ones? "git add", "git commit", "git push", "git log", "git revert", "git checkout", "git merge", and "git branch" do not require any options unless you want some shortcuts or useful things that SVN cannot do.

jerf 16y ago
The error messages have been undergoing fairly rapid change lately, as in, over the past year. I'd say that anyone complaining about the error messages should double-check that they have a very recent version. If you're just using your distro's version you may be a ways back. That said, there are still some error messages that are quite good, if you understand git's model, but if you don't are nearly opaque. (Easy to google, though.) Git really is unfriendly to you if you're just trying to hack along without understanding how it works, and I don't see that ever changing. It's a power tool, not a butter knife, and while it can, should, and does have guards in the right place to keep you from really hurting yourself (you basically can't lose data in the repository, thanks to reflog; be careful with checkout, though), it's not ever going to be quite as simple as a casual user would like. If it was, it wouldn't be git anymore.
ubercore 16y ago
An example that trips me up frequently is creating a remote branch, then tracking it in a local branch. This is by far my most common workflow, but as far as I've learned so far, involves a couple of commands with some easy to forget options. Granted, after a few times I just wrote it down, and now mostly remember, but it's not as simple as it potentially could be. I was also a little shocked to find that I couldn't simply start tracking a remote branch after a local branch had already been created -- requires git 1.7. The workaround was simple (create a new tracking branch and merge the changes over), but to me this is an example of the UI being a little unhelpful.

by Xurinos 16y ago

jerf 16y ago

The error messages have been undergoing fairly rapid change lately, as in, over the past year. I'd say that anyone complaining about the error messages should double-check that they have a very recent version. If you're just using your distro's version you may be a ways back. That said, there are still some error messages that are quite good, if you understand git's model, but if you don't are nearly opaque. (Easy to google, though.) Git really is unfriendly to you if you're just trying to hack along without understanding how it works, and I don't see that ever changing. It's a power tool, not a butter knife, and while it can, should, and does have guards in the right place to keep you from really hurting yourself (you basically can't lose data in the repository, thanks to reflog; be careful with checkout, though), it's not ever going to be quite as simple as a casual user would like. If it was, it wouldn't be git anymore.

ubercore 16y ago

An example that trips me up frequently is creating a remote branch, then tracking it in a local branch. This is by far my most common workflow, but as far as I've learned so far, involves a couple of commands with some easy to forget options. Granted, after a few times I just wrote it down, and now mostly remember, but it's not as simple as it potentially could be. I was also a little shocked to find that I couldn't simply start tracking a remote branch after a local branch had already been created -- requires git 1.7. The workaround was simple (create a new tracking branch and merge the changes over), but to me this is an example of the UI being a little unhelpful.