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If anything I'm not sure Linus is held in enough esteem outside of tech circles. I wish all the time that more of the people I know outside of software could b

If anything I'm not sure Linus is held in enough esteem outside of tech circles. I wish all the time that more of the people I know outside of software could benefit from something like Git. It's unbelievable how powerful a tool it is, and when I watch people doing awkward and error prone simultaneous-editing and remote synching etc, it just doesn't compare. But then git is too abstract for many. Your files are a representation of a state of combined changes, the files themselves are not the owners of their content. I even had to have a huge debate with a developer once about how storing a git repo in Dropbox folder so they could have same exact state across two machines was a terrible idea, and already solved with Git itself... And then how few people also know how many places the Linux kernel or derivatives live, or even that many things they use are running something based on Linux. What an incomprehensibly huge achievement on both counts! [Edit] typo

globular-toast 6y ago
Git is at a vastly different level of abstraction than most of the population are used to (or capable of). When Linus made git, concepts like references, pointers, indirection, graphs, hashing, indexing etc. were already as obvious to him as the sky being above the ground. Even some programmers struggle to operate at this level. It does hurt to see non-technical people inventing their own terrible VCSs, though ("Copy of Important Document 2020-11-21 (2) (Updated PB).docx")
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  >It does hurt to see non-technical people inventing their own terrible VCSs, though ("Copy of Important Document 2020-11-21 (2) (Updated PB).docx") I don't think that is necessarily due to not be able to use git (as in not competent to use it) but not able to use it due to restrictions in their workplace or even just unfamiliarity with the possibility of such a tool existing.
  - simias 6y ago
    Well that and out of the box git isn't very user friendly, even for developers who are used to dealing with command line tools. To this day in my experience most devs have a relatively shallow understanding of git and often need assistance for anything more complex than commit and push. I can't count the number of times I've had to assist a colleague for what ended up being a relatively simple merge. I think you'd need an extremely good GUI if you wanted to market git to the masses.
    - sammorrowdrums 6y ago
      Hahaha, watch as colleagues stare blankly when you ask them to look at the reflog after botching a rebase and force pushing... and loads of other tools like bisect and blame heavily under-utilised, custom git hooks... The list of under-utilised git commands is long, and while perhaps a sign of a poor UX, if you use the features it really is rare that you are surprised or that you cannot return a repo to a good state, regardless of what you do.
      - simias 6y ago
        I do think that git's UI is a good case study on how not to design a command line interface. It's improved over the years but I remember that a decade ago the contrast was stark if you compared, say, mercurial to git. Git always felt more like you were exposed a raw low level API on the command line with a few shell macros on top to make it a bit more palatable which is effectively what it was for a long time. I suppose it fits well within the unix philosophy of clunky but very flexible and not very opinionated tools.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >It does hurt to see non-technical people inventing their own terrible VCSs, though ("Copy of Important Document 2020-11-21 (2) (Updated PB).docx") To be honest, for most purposes, shared docs do revision control well enough for the purposes of text docs and presentations. I've used GitHub for some larger collaborations, but it's really overkill for most day-to-day docs.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  I'm a programmer, I understand all those things well, but I struggle to use git beyond pull, commit, push. Every time I do something more than that I end up needing to google error messages, and usually end up copying my changes to a temp directory, doing a hard reset, and starting over.
  - globular-toast 6y ago
    I assume you haven't studied git at the DAG level then. It makes a lot more sense once you do.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    I think he chose the wrong verbs. pull should’ve been clone. commit should’ve been snap. push should’ve been commit. This way, clone (instead of pull) will make a local copy on your computer. This is your local working copy. When you are ready to save, you can “snap” shot it, and leave a little message. And you can do as much of this as you want. Then when you’re ready to merge it back to the primary database, then you can “commit” it. The whole concept of pull/commit/push seems nonsensical to me. As a layman, I can’t understand the importance of pull vs. push in this context. And this makes it difficult to explain to someone non-technical.
- blackrock 6y ago
  Can you actually use git with proprietary binary formatted files like docx?
nix23 6y ago
>What an incomprehensibly huge achievement on both counts! He is an amazing dev, don't get me wrong. BUT he had lots of luck starting from not choosing the name Freax, choosing the same license as his compiler (GPL), and a professor that did no understood free-software (Tannenbaum and his minix), the legal battle of the BSD's...and maybe a too expensive and ~slow solaris, and a really good but proprietary VCS (Bitkeeper) as a idea-blueprint for git.
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  True, although when you compare for example to people behind large brands with frequently huge acclaim, and then glimpse inside their (frequently) empty shell that is a marketing PR machine where all the real innovation, manufacturer and logistics is all bought, I think it's ok to give acclaim to somebody lucky, with prior art and inspiration from people who's shoulders they stand on, simply for the outcome that emerged.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- quesera 6y ago
  You're not wrong. But, tens of thousands of other people had all of those same lucky things. Linus has claimed to have been unaware of the existence of BSD, so perhaps he had a bit of fortunate ignorance as well. (FWIW, neither Linux nor git are my preferred options, but I still think Linus has spawned great things. :)
  - nix23 6y ago
    > You're not wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641073 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA/SwRavCzVE7gJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RR... >But, tens of thousands of other people had all of those same lucky things. Yes AND? >but I still think Linus has spawned great things. I did not say anything else.

globular-toast 6y ago

Git is at a vastly different level of abstraction than most of the population are used to (or capable of). When Linus made git, concepts like references, pointers, indirection, graphs, hashing, indexing etc. were already as obvious to him as the sky being above the ground. Even some programmers struggle to operate at this level. It does hurt to see non-technical people inventing their own terrible VCSs, though ("Copy of Important Document 2020-11-21 (2) (Updated PB).docx")

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>It does hurt to see non-technical people inventing their own terrible VCSs, though ("Copy of Important Document 2020-11-21 (2) (Updated PB).docx") I don't think that is necessarily due to not be able to use git (as in not competent to use it) but not able to use it due to restrictions in their workplace or even just unfamiliarity with the possibility of such a tool existing.
- simias 6y ago
  Well that and out of the box git isn't very user friendly, even for developers who are used to dealing with command line tools. To this day in my experience most devs have a relatively shallow understanding of git and often need assistance for anything more complex than commit and push. I can't count the number of times I've had to assist a colleague for what ended up being a relatively simple merge. I think you'd need an extremely good GUI if you wanted to market git to the masses.
  - sammorrowdrums 6y ago
    Hahaha, watch as colleagues stare blankly when you ask them to look at the reflog after botching a rebase and force pushing... and loads of other tools like bisect and blame heavily under-utilised, custom git hooks... The list of under-utilised git commands is long, and while perhaps a sign of a poor UX, if you use the features it really is rare that you are surprised or that you cannot return a repo to a good state, regardless of what you do.
    - simias 6y ago
      I do think that git's UI is a good case study on how not to design a command line interface. It's improved over the years but I remember that a decade ago the contrast was stark if you compared, say, mercurial to git. Git always felt more like you were exposed a raw low level API on the command line with a few shell macros on top to make it a bit more palatable which is effectively what it was for a long time. I suppose it fits well within the unix philosophy of clunky but very flexible and not very opinionated tools.
ghaff 6y ago
>It does hurt to see non-technical people inventing their own terrible VCSs, though ("Copy of Important Document 2020-11-21 (2) (Updated PB).docx") To be honest, for most purposes, shared docs do revision control well enough for the purposes of text docs and presentations. I've used GitHub for some larger collaborations, but it's really overkill for most day-to-day docs.
throwaway201103 6y ago
I'm a programmer, I understand all those things well, but I struggle to use git beyond pull, commit, push. Every time I do something more than that I end up needing to google error messages, and usually end up copying my changes to a temp directory, doing a hard reset, and starting over.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  I assume you haven't studied git at the DAG level then. It makes a lot more sense once you do.
- blackrock 6y ago
  I think he chose the wrong verbs. pull should’ve been clone. commit should’ve been snap. push should’ve been commit. This way, clone (instead of pull) will make a local copy on your computer. This is your local working copy. When you are ready to save, you can “snap” shot it, and leave a little message. And you can do as much of this as you want. Then when you’re ready to merge it back to the primary database, then you can “commit” it. The whole concept of pull/commit/push seems nonsensical to me. As a layman, I can’t understand the importance of pull vs. push in this context. And this makes it difficult to explain to someone non-technical.
blackrock 6y ago
Can you actually use git with proprietary binary formatted files like docx?

nix23 6y ago

>What an incomprehensibly huge achievement on both counts! He is an amazing dev, don't get me wrong. BUT he had lots of luck starting from not choosing the name Freax, choosing the same license as his compiler (GPL), and a professor that did no understood free-software (Tannenbaum and his minix), the legal battle of the BSD's...and maybe a too expensive and ~slow solaris, and a really good but proprietary VCS (Bitkeeper) as a idea-blueprint for git.

sammorrowdrums 6y ago
True, although when you compare for example to people behind large brands with frequently huge acclaim, and then glimpse inside their (frequently) empty shell that is a marketing PR machine where all the real innovation, manufacturer and logistics is all bought, I think it's ok to give acclaim to somebody lucky, with prior art and inspiration from people who's shoulders they stand on, simply for the outcome that emerged.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
quesera 6y ago
You're not wrong. But, tens of thousands of other people had all of those same lucky things. Linus has claimed to have been unaware of the existence of BSD, so perhaps he had a bit of fortunate ignorance as well. (FWIW, neither Linux nor git are my preferred options, but I still think Linus has spawned great things. :)
- nix23 6y ago
  > You're not wrong. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641073 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA/SwRavCzVE7gJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RR... >But, tens of thousands of other people had all of those same lucky things. Yes AND? >but I still think Linus has spawned great things. I did not say anything else.