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Git wrappers are interesting things. I know a lot of people dislike them in concept.. but strangely enough, I like them in concept. I'm far from a git expert, f

Git wrappers are interesting things. I know a lot of people dislike them in concept.. but strangely enough, I like them in concept. I'm far from a git expert, frankly I'm just barely literate, but I firmly believe there must be a more simplified UX for Git. Again, never to prevent normal usage, but to focus on educating the various states of git, and really trying to make the commands very obvious for normal use cases. I see so many of these.. I'm wondering if it's sort of a rite of passage. Maybe I should write my own? I'm sure I'd become more proficient at Git if I did. edit: Since writing this, I think I decided on writing my own wrapper. Specifically, focused on a very small subset of straight forward commands with exceptionally obvious wording and step by step education. I really like the way http://www.git-town.com http://www.git-town.com documents their command usage, so I'll likely adopt that - but with the added feature of providing either inline or copy-paste commands to gain per-step documentation. Explaining the motive behind a command, and why it was used in that case. I also dislike how git-town layers their own UX, as I think an education wrapper's goal should be to improve education on normal git flows, not make new ones (automatic syncing, etc). Wish me luck lol.

davexunit 9y ago
I rarely ever use the Git CLI anymore. Instead, I use Magit, an Emacs extension. It is, hands down, the best Git tool available. Things that are cumbersome on the CLI become painless, like staging hunks of files, interactive rebases, viewing a blame of the file I'm currently looking at, quickly amending a commit that isn't the current HEAD, reverting parts of commits, browsing stashes, partially applying stashed changes, and much more. It is the single best tool I use every day aside from Emacs itself. https://magit.vc https://magit.vc P.S. - to those worried about what git wrappers are doing behind the scenes, in Magit you just press `$` to see the command log.
- throwanem 9y ago
  > quickly amending a commit that isn't the current HEAD How? I use Magit too, and my go-to method for doing this would be an interactive rebase that only modifies the target commit. I'd love to know about a quicker way!
  - davexunit 9y ago
    From the status buffer, press `c F` for "instant fixup". It is relatively new.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      Oh neat! Thanks for the steer.
makecheck 9y ago
Ironically I find wrappers more complex because I constantly worry if they did everything correctly. That, and for every X people who understand raw "git" commands, X/2000 understand wrappers out of the box.
- notheguyouthink 9y ago
  Funny enough, I've got some team members that I'm having to babysit with Git. Frankly, I shouldn't be babysitting anyone lol (due to lack of Git knowledge myself). Yet, I am. So I think a Git wrapper (as I mentioned above) ideally should do a very small set of things that set those developers off in the right direction. Basically what I verbally say every time they ask me what to do in X scenario. With that said, I definitely agree with you. This thing I'm discussing writing is a wrapper for the non-git users. I don't expect what I'm going to do to actually save normal/advanced users time, I expect those users to not even use a wrapper.
wvenable 9y ago
I wonder if git wrappers should always print the corresponding git command they are actually executing before doing anything. This might give the benefit of using the wrapper with a bit of passive understanding of the actual corresponding git commands.

davexunit 9y ago

I rarely ever use the Git CLI anymore. Instead, I use Magit, an Emacs extension. It is, hands down, the best Git tool available. Things that are cumbersome on the CLI become painless, like staging hunks of files, interactive rebases, viewing a blame of the file I'm currently looking at, quickly amending a commit that isn't the current HEAD, reverting parts of commits, browsing stashes, partially applying stashed changes, and much more. It is the single best tool I use every day aside from Emacs itself. https://magit.vc https://magit.vc P.S. - to those worried about what git wrappers are doing behind the scenes, in Magit you just press `$` to see the command log.

throwanem 9y ago
> quickly amending a commit that isn't the current HEAD How? I use Magit too, and my go-to method for doing this would be an interactive rebase that only modifies the target commit. I'd love to know about a quicker way!
- davexunit 9y ago
  From the status buffer, press `c F` for "instant fixup". It is relatively new.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    Oh neat! Thanks for the steer.

makecheck 9y ago

Ironically I find wrappers more complex because I constantly worry if they did everything correctly. That, and for every X people who understand raw "git" commands, X/2000 understand wrappers out of the box.

notheguyouthink 9y ago
Funny enough, I've got some team members that I'm having to babysit with Git. Frankly, I shouldn't be babysitting anyone lol (due to lack of Git knowledge myself). Yet, I am. So I think a Git wrapper (as I mentioned above) ideally should do a very small set of things that set those developers off in the right direction. Basically what I verbally say every time they ask me what to do in X scenario. With that said, I definitely agree with you. This thing I'm discussing writing is a wrapper for the non-git users. I don't expect what I'm going to do to actually save normal/advanced users time, I expect those users to not even use a wrapper.

wvenable 9y ago

I wonder if git wrappers should always print the corresponding git command they are actually executing before doing anything. This might give the benefit of using the wrapper with a bit of passive understanding of the actual corresponding git commands.