Agreed, commits are snapshots, whether we like or not. For obvious storage efficiency reasons, the implementation then diffs/packs/etc, but this is a different

Agreed, commits are snapshots, whether we like or not. For obvious storage efficiency reasons, the implementation then diffs/packs/etc, but this is a different issue altogether. I have found that I can't work with git with a different mental model (diffs). Every time things get messy, the diff model is not enough, whereas snapshots + commit graph + names/pointers make things natural. Interestingly enough, when migrating people from svn to git, explaining the actual model makes the transition much smoother, so it would seem I'm not the only one.