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No need for 'Fork' or having a 3rd party tool. Git log does half the job and Gitk the the other half if you need a GUI to visualize your branches. I'm always a

No need for 'Fork' or having a 3rd party tool. Git log does half the job and Gitk the the other half if you need a GUI to visualize your branches. I'm always amazed by the tools surrounding Git so much more complexity than what we need.

real_ate 5y ago
I did kinda address this in the post. While it's true that you can do everything that Fork can do in the command line (and supplement that with a branch visualiser), everyone but the people most comfortable with Git will avoid even attempting the techniques outlined in the post. I would estimate that this is probably less than 10% of devs (possibly far far less) Using something like Fork actually makes the whole process of interacting with Git much more enjoyable, and therefore will encourage people to use more intermediate or expert aspects of Git to their full advantage.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Fork is paid after a trial now, right? Not a problem, devs should get paid. It was free and/or open source before so I’m wondering because of that. For Mac, is there any specific reason for Fork over Tower, or some of the other trendy Git GUIs? I have GitFox from SetApp and it is lacking quite a bit in my opinion. Tower is pricey with yearly subscription, but does have a student discount. I’m sure there’s a couple of others too. FYI: great in depth post. I’ll be referencing this from time to time.
  - real_ate 5y ago
    So I would say that it's currently "technically" a paid-for app. It seems like they are doing something like Sublime with a "nagware" approach. I have been using it since it was free and haven't actually needed to pay for it yet. Having said that I will probably pay soon anyway because it is such a valuable tool for me. As for using Fork vs other apps, I used to use SourceTree before Fork. Fork is my favorite right now because it is less opinionated and really just exposes the Git functionality directly. For example SourceTree made it impossible to force-push because they didn't believe you ever should. There is another class of app for Git that is like a subset or overlay, like the way GitHub desktop uses "sync" instead of real Git terms. I remember Tower also felt like it was trying to make me see things the way it wanted me to and not the way Git worked but I can't remember the details.
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      Ah okay cool about Fork then. I haven’t checked the differences but the class of apps like Fork, GitFox, Tower all feel like they are in the same category. SourceTree def is not in that category :p. I’ll prob switch to using Fork as my main GUI
skinnymuch 5y ago
Using a GUI is much nicer for many people. The interfaces can be inviting, pretty enough, and can handle a lot of git’s core functionality. Sure, if you’re used to the cli, got guis might be of no help. Though I believe at least some of the time, the ease of being able to dive into history of commits, trees, diffs when doing big commits, all are helpful even for git [cli] vets. A lot of people don’t care for learning all of git in the command line. Hate keeping git and other dev related usage to doing it the correct way like through command line can push people away who would otherwise use something.
- alunchbox 5y ago
  I wanted to point out the native GUI tools are very friendly, cross platform and do their job pretty well that come with git (Gitk, git gui). Rather than a paid tool like Fork, Git Kraken, Tortise, Source tree and the list goes on. Also vsCode has some free extensions that give you the graph tooling as well and it's really powerful along with modern IDE's like Visual Studio & IntelliJ ecosystem.

real_ate 5y ago

I did kinda address this in the post. While it's true that you can do everything that Fork can do in the command line (and supplement that with a branch visualiser), everyone but the people most comfortable with Git will avoid even attempting the techniques outlined in the post. I would estimate that this is probably less than 10% of devs (possibly far far less) Using something like Fork actually makes the whole process of interacting with Git much more enjoyable, and therefore will encourage people to use more intermediate or expert aspects of Git to their full advantage.

skinnymuch 5y ago
Fork is paid after a trial now, right? Not a problem, devs should get paid. It was free and/or open source before so I’m wondering because of that. For Mac, is there any specific reason for Fork over Tower, or some of the other trendy Git GUIs? I have GitFox from SetApp and it is lacking quite a bit in my opinion. Tower is pricey with yearly subscription, but does have a student discount. I’m sure there’s a couple of others too. FYI: great in depth post. I’ll be referencing this from time to time.
- real_ate 5y ago
  So I would say that it's currently "technically" a paid-for app. It seems like they are doing something like Sublime with a "nagware" approach. I have been using it since it was free and haven't actually needed to pay for it yet. Having said that I will probably pay soon anyway because it is such a valuable tool for me. As for using Fork vs other apps, I used to use SourceTree before Fork. Fork is my favorite right now because it is less opinionated and really just exposes the Git functionality directly. For example SourceTree made it impossible to force-push because they didn't believe you ever should. There is another class of app for Git that is like a subset or overlay, like the way GitHub desktop uses "sync" instead of real Git terms. I remember Tower also felt like it was trying to make me see things the way it wanted me to and not the way Git worked but I can't remember the details.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Ah okay cool about Fork then. I haven’t checked the differences but the class of apps like Fork, GitFox, Tower all feel like they are in the same category. SourceTree def is not in that category :p. I’ll prob switch to using Fork as my main GUI

skinnymuch 5y ago

Using a GUI is much nicer for many people. The interfaces can be inviting, pretty enough, and can handle a lot of git’s core functionality. Sure, if you’re used to the cli, got guis might be of no help. Though I believe at least some of the time, the ease of being able to dive into history of commits, trees, diffs when doing big commits, all are helpful even for git [cli] vets. A lot of people don’t care for learning all of git in the command line. Hate keeping git and other dev related usage to doing it the correct way like through command line can push people away who would otherwise use something.

alunchbox 5y ago
I wanted to point out the native GUI tools are very friendly, cross platform and do their job pretty well that come with git (Gitk, git gui). Rather than a paid tool like Fork, Git Kraken, Tortise, Source tree and the list goes on. Also vsCode has some free extensions that give you the graph tooling as well and it's really powerful along with modern IDE's like Visual Studio & IntelliJ ecosystem.