3 ms·

It’s Stockholm syndrome mixed with you being an expert at a specific tool. The reality is, Git is unintuitive, and makes nearly every common thing the average

It’s Stockholm syndrome mixed with you being an expert at a specific tool. The reality is, Git is unintuitive, and makes nearly every common thing the average person wants to do a complete pain in the ass. I understand you (and I) know how to get things done using Git, but as a society and a technically community, we should strive to make things better.

Vanit 4y ago
Agreed. Are the people defending it forgetting how often beginners end up in seemingly arcane states and need to just check out the branch again to return to sanity?
- leipert 4y ago
  I dunno. Isn’t that what happens when you learn something? When learning to program, you end up in arcane states. When learning languages, you end up in arcane states. Even when learning how to drive, I ended up in arcane states. Obviously a bit of hyperbole, but when hopefully when you learn it and end up in weird states, you have a companion helping you to correct course.
- ilyt 4y ago
  I'd imagine they'd do the same with any other DVCS. The concept of 2 people changing file that then needs to be merged is already hard enough for some, add distributed and you're in for a mess. From my experience as sysadmin the people having problem with it also highly correlate with people that just chmod 777 on server if something doesn't work and they don't understand why...
growse 4y ago
I feel like the entire concept of version control is "unintuitive", especially when you have multiple people working on the same codebase. What's worse, is that a lot of people who seem to be asking for the same workflows actually have slightly (or significantly!) different conceptual models of what they want, so we end up in this weird place where we think we all want the same thing but actually don't. If anything, git has clearly demonstrated that this is a complex space, and its perceived unusability stems from the fact that the operations it supports simply map onto basic graph operations.
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  I think what you say is true but git exacerbates it significantly by layering ultra confusing terms on top. It's slowly being fixed in small ways but things like making "checkout" have multiple meanings both of which conflict to conventional usage in other version control tools is really inexcusable and nothing to do with graph theory.
ilyt 4y ago
I'd argue that DVCS is unintuitive as a concept and Git just spawns from that. If you know graph theory and understand concepts behind DVCS and asynchronous workflows, Git just isn't hard, but that's minority, including actual developers. Switching Git to Mercurial, or pretty much any other actual DVCS ain't going to make life of artist or someone tech-clueless any better, because while UI might be improved they still don't know what exactly they are doing or why

Vanit 4y ago

Agreed. Are the people defending it forgetting how often beginners end up in seemingly arcane states and need to just check out the branch again to return to sanity?

leipert 4y ago
I dunno. Isn’t that what happens when you learn something? When learning to program, you end up in arcane states. When learning languages, you end up in arcane states. Even when learning how to drive, I ended up in arcane states. Obviously a bit of hyperbole, but when hopefully when you learn it and end up in weird states, you have a companion helping you to correct course.
ilyt 4y ago
I'd imagine they'd do the same with any other DVCS. The concept of 2 people changing file that then needs to be merged is already hard enough for some, add distributed and you're in for a mess. From my experience as sysadmin the people having problem with it also highly correlate with people that just chmod 777 on server if something doesn't work and they don't understand why...

growse 4y ago

I feel like the entire concept of version control is "unintuitive", especially when you have multiple people working on the same codebase. What's worse, is that a lot of people who seem to be asking for the same workflows actually have slightly (or significantly!) different conceptual models of what they want, so we end up in this weird place where we think we all want the same thing but actually don't. If anything, git has clearly demonstrated that this is a complex space, and its perceived unusability stems from the fact that the operations it supports simply map onto basic graph operations.

zmmmmm 4y ago
I think what you say is true but git exacerbates it significantly by layering ultra confusing terms on top. It's slowly being fixed in small ways but things like making "checkout" have multiple meanings both of which conflict to conventional usage in other version control tools is really inexcusable and nothing to do with graph theory.

ilyt 4y ago

I'd argue that DVCS is unintuitive as a concept and Git just spawns from that. If you know graph theory and understand concepts behind DVCS and asynchronous workflows, Git just isn't hard, but that's minority, including actual developers. Switching Git to Mercurial, or pretty much any other actual DVCS ain't going to make life of artist or someone tech-clueless any better, because while UI might be improved they still don't know what exactly they are doing or why