6 ms·

There is a learning curve, true, but it definitely pays off once you are comfortable enough with the (admittedly bad) UI. Even for 1-2 person teams.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I disagree. Compressed backups of the source and a changelog are very simple, straightforward, and effective on this scale. Too many people in this industry fetishize complexity and end up over-complicating even the smallest things, which might be why they get on the internet and criticize someone like Tarn for not doing so instead of actually creating something worthwhile.
- leadingthenet 8y ago
  How the heck is that simpler than -- git add . -- git commit -m "I did something" -- git push How???
  - joppy 8y ago
    “git show-me-the-code-as-of-last-Wednesday” is not a command that git understands. Of course, you can _do_ this in git, by memorising arcane commands, and you still only get the output on your terminal. The other option is basically using a GUI interface for git. On the other hand, finding the folder for last Wednesday and opening it up is easy.
    - leadingthenet 8y ago
      "git log" is a truly arcane command indeed. Also, pushing your repo to Github / Gitlab / Bitbucket / (a thousand different free services) and then looking at the commit history visually is incredibly difficult. Come on people, get a grip.
      - joppy 8y ago
        The actual command you need to use is something like “git show HEAD@{2013-02-25}:./file”, which I would count as arcane. And pushing your repo to github and looking at the commit history is using a graphical interface.
        skolsuper 8y ago
        Most people that _play_ dwarf fortress probably memorise more arcane commands than that, let alone the people that write it.
        seba_dos1 8y ago
        No, the actual commands you need to use are "git log", copy the commit ID, and then paste it to "git show <PASTE_COMMIT_ID_HERE>". Of course you can use shortcuts, but those are entirely optional. For a single-person, single-branch workflow, git is extremely easy. It gets really complicated when doing something more, until you stop seeing git as a VCS tool, but rather as a tool to manipulate the data structure used to do the VCS. But that's a completely different, unrelated topic to this thread.
    - rcfox 8y ago
      I've never needed to see the state of the code at a particular date, but I frequently look up when a particular line of code has changed, who did it, and why.
      - joppy 8y ago
        I’m not saying git is bad and you shouldn’t use it, I’m answering the question asked which was “how could anything but git possibly be easier”.
    - roddds 8y ago
      git log --since=2019-03-06
    - vharuck 8y ago
      >The other option is basically using a GUI interface for git. Unless you don't use a GUI for browsing your file system, you really can't dismiss the GUI that comes with Git. It's easy to use the history browser to check out code from certain dates. And it even simplifies tagging commits so you can check out "release 3" instead of referring to a list of release dates.
  - BigJono 8y ago
    Because "simple" and "complex" both have two completely different meanings in software engineering. Something can be simple and/or it can be simple to use. Usually they're inversely correlated. You're both working on different definitions of simple.
  - tom_ 8y ago
    Windows: 1. Click folder in Windows Explorer 2. Press Ctrl+C 3. Press Ctrl+V 4. Press f2 5. Type new name 6. Press Return Mac OS X: 1. Click folder in Finder 2. Press Cmd+D 3. Press Return 4. Type new name 5. Press Return (No real idea about Linux, which I'm only confident with from a programming perspective.) If nothing else, it's at least fewer keypresses.
    - nomel 8y ago
      This is not really the use case of git. It's not a simple copy. You can look at old changes, reverse old changes, branch and merge new features at a later time. It's does everything you would need to do manually do with copy paste (diff, merge, find old changes, comment changes, etc) but with much less effort (assuming you use a GUI).
  - specialist 8y ago
    As Donald Norman would say, it's all about the affordances. While supporting almost any inexplicably bad workflow imaginable (git-flow and kin), doing the reasonable thing for a two person crew has way too much cognitive burden.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

I disagree. Compressed backups of the source and a changelog are very simple, straightforward, and effective on this scale. Too many people in this industry fetishize complexity and end up over-complicating even the smallest things, which might be why they get on the internet and criticize someone like Tarn for not doing so instead of actually creating something worthwhile.

leadingthenet 8y ago
How the heck is that simpler than -- git add . -- git commit -m "I did something" -- git push How???
- joppy 8y ago
  “git show-me-the-code-as-of-last-Wednesday” is not a command that git understands. Of course, you can _do_ this in git, by memorising arcane commands, and you still only get the output on your terminal. The other option is basically using a GUI interface for git. On the other hand, finding the folder for last Wednesday and opening it up is easy.
  - leadingthenet 8y ago
    "git log" is a truly arcane command indeed. Also, pushing your repo to Github / Gitlab / Bitbucket / (a thousand different free services) and then looking at the commit history visually is incredibly difficult. Come on people, get a grip.
    - joppy 8y ago
      The actual command you need to use is something like “git show HEAD@{2013-02-25}:./file”, which I would count as arcane. And pushing your repo to github and looking at the commit history is using a graphical interface.
      - skolsuper 8y ago
        Most people that _play_ dwarf fortress probably memorise more arcane commands than that, let alone the people that write it.
      - seba_dos1 8y ago
        No, the actual commands you need to use are "git log", copy the commit ID, and then paste it to "git show <PASTE_COMMIT_ID_HERE>". Of course you can use shortcuts, but those are entirely optional. For a single-person, single-branch workflow, git is extremely easy. It gets really complicated when doing something more, until you stop seeing git as a VCS tool, but rather as a tool to manipulate the data structure used to do the VCS. But that's a completely different, unrelated topic to this thread.
  - rcfox 8y ago
    I've never needed to see the state of the code at a particular date, but I frequently look up when a particular line of code has changed, who did it, and why.
    - joppy 8y ago
      I’m not saying git is bad and you shouldn’t use it, I’m answering the question asked which was “how could anything but git possibly be easier”.
  - roddds 8y ago
    git log --since=2019-03-06
  - vharuck 8y ago
    >The other option is basically using a GUI interface for git. Unless you don't use a GUI for browsing your file system, you really can't dismiss the GUI that comes with Git. It's easy to use the history browser to check out code from certain dates. And it even simplifies tagging commits so you can check out "release 3" instead of referring to a list of release dates.
- BigJono 8y ago
  Because "simple" and "complex" both have two completely different meanings in software engineering. Something can be simple and/or it can be simple to use. Usually they're inversely correlated. You're both working on different definitions of simple.
- tom_ 8y ago
  Windows: 1. Click folder in Windows Explorer 2. Press Ctrl+C 3. Press Ctrl+V 4. Press f2 5. Type new name 6. Press Return Mac OS X: 1. Click folder in Finder 2. Press Cmd+D 3. Press Return 4. Type new name 5. Press Return (No real idea about Linux, which I'm only confident with from a programming perspective.) If nothing else, it's at least fewer keypresses.
  - nomel 8y ago
    This is not really the use case of git. It's not a simple copy. You can look at old changes, reverse old changes, branch and merge new features at a later time. It's does everything you would need to do manually do with copy paste (diff, merge, find old changes, comment changes, etc) but with much less effort (assuming you use a GUI).
- specialist 8y ago
  As Donald Norman would say, it's all about the affordances. While supporting almost any inexplicably bad workflow imaginable (git-flow and kin), doing the reasonable thing for a two person crew has way too much cognitive burden.