Obviously it isn't literal. Myself and many of my colleagues have had confession sessions in which we all admit to regularly shooting ourselves in the foot with

Obviously it isn't literal. Myself and many of my colleagues have had confession sessions in which we all admit to regularly shooting ourselves in the foot with git, and needing to have a cheat sheet open, perpetually. That should tell you something, and it really shouldn't tell you that we're willfully ignorant, unless you want to sound smug. Any system that has consistent-ish rules can be learned. The more rules, and the subtler they are, the harder it is to learn. Git's problem is that it is necessary to know how it really works, to avoid getting into a bad state. It's complicated enough that it is easier than it should be to get into a bad state. The extent of the rules you have to know to avoid trouble does not match the simplicity of the day to day operations you do on the repo.