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> “learn how to use git” is extraordinarily open-ended, and one of the most challenging parts is to know where to even start. It's not really. It seems like i
by js2 4y ago
> “learn how to use git” is extraordinarily open-ended, and one of the most challenging parts is to know where to even start.
It's not really. It seems like it is because it has a baroque CLI with a ton of commands and those commands all have a ton of switches and the same commands can do lots of different things.
But under that atrocious CLI git is very elegant and simple conceptually. Once you understand the underlying concepts (blobs, trees, commits, refs, index/stage) the rest flows naturally.
Now I've been working with it since its earliest days including contributing to it here and there, but I never really found it very hard to grok.
"Git from the bottom up" is dated but git hasn't changed conceptually since then. "Git for computer scientists" is another good one. But any of the tutorials that start with git's low-level concepts and build from there are where I'd start.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago> It's not really. It seems like it is because it has a baroque CLI with a ton of commands and those commands all have a ton of switches and the same commands can do lots of different things.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoThis quote-only reply was meant with kindness, but you made my point far better than I could have made it myself.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- js2 4y agoDo you want to be right or do you want to win? I was trying to remain sympathetic to your concerns while offering an alternate approach to learning git you might not have considered. I don’t have any trouble with git’s CLI but I understand why people find it frustrating. That is all.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago> Do you want to be right or do you want to win? Neither! I appreciate your perspective, and wish I’d emphasized that more than I did.
- vbezhenar 4y agoI’ve yet to meet anyone using git command line in their day to day activity. Everyone’s just using IDE. So IMO git CLI is not the issue in most scenarios. You might want to have git guru in your team to resolve some particularly hard situations, but that should be an exceptional situation.
- CodeSgt 4y agoInversely, I don't think there's a single developer in my work center that routinely uses git anywhere but the CLI. I think CLI git usage may be more common than you believe.