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There are GUIs that are very close to CLI that don't try to reinvent a wheel and instead just map directly to what git does. The best one, I think, being Magit

There are GUIs that are very close to CLI that don't try to reinvent a wheel and instead just map directly to what git does. The best one, I think, being Magit for Emacs (if you can call that a 'GUI' given you can run it in the terminal). If you get used to commit things by-line instead of by-file (which is generally highly recommended with git), and also clean up your history/squash things a lot, using git cli gets VERY tedious very fast; I'd rather do it in several keypresses because why not.

dilap 9y ago
Sort of off-topic, but magit isn't really GUI :-) -- though it is very nice, if you're an emacs user. It's Achilles' heel is speed, though -- too damn slow. (Last time I tried it, anyway, which was a while ago.)
- aldanor 9y ago
  Well. That depends :) I don't develop in Emacs and use it solely for hosting Magit, in a separate window. So it's kind of a GUI I guess; more so than a CLI anyway. > It's Achilles' heel is speed, though -- too damn slow. (Last time I tried it, anyway, which was a while ago.) Don't remember a single of case of it feeling too slow in the last few years, whether on linux/mac... (maybe it just got better over time though)
  - dilap 9y ago
    interesting. i'm on mac; i'll have to give it another try. also we might just have different ideas of "too slow"; for common operations, anything more than instant is basically too slow. :-)
    - tarsius 9y ago
      On macOS it helps to use Emacs 26.1 (unreleased but very solid) or to use a build with a backport of the vfork patch. For more information see https://magit.vc/manual/magit/MacOS-Performance.html https://magit.vc/manual/magit/MacOS-Performance.html. I also plan to make Magit faster across all platforms.
      - dilap 9y ago
        very cool to hear that performance is a focus area!
- JetSetWilly 9y ago
  It seems to be incredibly slow on windows, but fine on linux. It seems like the sort of ui that needs to be near-instant in order to be usable, the premise being you can tap the various shortcuts to assemble a command very rapidly. But on windows this is an exercise in frustration because each command takes at least a second or two at best to execute and often much longer.
- tarsius 9y ago
  I think Magit could be classified as a TUI [1]. But that still doesn't help explain its benefits to someone who hasn't tried it. For the crowdfunding campaign that I ran earlier this year I wrote a few articles. For those unfamiliar with Magit I would recommend [2] and the more visual [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface [2] https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git-interface/#start https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git-interface/#st... [3] https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/magit-walk-through/#start https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/magit-walk-through/#start
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  It's a Graphical User Interface. I think that the distinction that makes a Commnad Line Interface is the REPL. I consider anything with a non-linear UI that you can see a GUI.
jdc0589 9y ago
GitExtensions was/is solid too; very little abstraction, it was just built for speed/efficiency. Someone recently told me it runs on Mono too now, but I haven't used it in years and never outside of Windows.

dilap 9y ago

Sort of off-topic, but magit isn't really GUI :-) -- though it is very nice, if you're an emacs user. It's Achilles' heel is speed, though -- too damn slow. (Last time I tried it, anyway, which was a while ago.)

aldanor 9y ago
Well. That depends :) I don't develop in Emacs and use it solely for hosting Magit, in a separate window. So it's kind of a GUI I guess; more so than a CLI anyway. > It's Achilles' heel is speed, though -- too damn slow. (Last time I tried it, anyway, which was a while ago.) Don't remember a single of case of it feeling too slow in the last few years, whether on linux/mac... (maybe it just got better over time though)
- dilap 9y ago
  interesting. i'm on mac; i'll have to give it another try. also we might just have different ideas of "too slow"; for common operations, anything more than instant is basically too slow. :-)
  - tarsius 9y ago
    On macOS it helps to use Emacs 26.1 (unreleased but very solid) or to use a build with a backport of the vfork patch. For more information see https://magit.vc/manual/magit/MacOS-Performance.html https://magit.vc/manual/magit/MacOS-Performance.html. I also plan to make Magit faster across all platforms.
    - dilap 9y ago
      very cool to hear that performance is a focus area!
JetSetWilly 9y ago
It seems to be incredibly slow on windows, but fine on linux. It seems like the sort of ui that needs to be near-instant in order to be usable, the premise being you can tap the various shortcuts to assemble a command very rapidly. But on windows this is an exercise in frustration because each command takes at least a second or two at best to execute and often much longer.
tarsius 9y ago
I think Magit could be classified as a TUI [1]. But that still doesn't help explain its benefits to someone who hasn't tried it. For the crowdfunding campaign that I ran earlier this year I wrote a few articles. For those unfamiliar with Magit I would recommend [2] and the more visual [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface [2] https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git-interface/#start https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git-interface/#st... [3] https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/magit-walk-through/#start https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/magit-walk-through/#start
thomastjeffery 9y ago
It's a Graphical User Interface. I think that the distinction that makes a Commnad Line Interface is the REPL. I consider anything with a non-linear UI that you can see a GUI.

jdc0589 9y ago

GitExtensions was/is solid too; very little abstraction, it was just built for speed/efficiency. Someone recently told me it runs on Mono too now, but I haven't used it in years and never outside of Windows.