Git is a fundamentally different kind of tool than a video codec, and I don't think comparing them is particularly helpful. I agree that Git could be a bit mor

Git is a fundamentally different kind of tool than a video codec, and I don't think comparing them is particularly helpful. I agree that Git could be a bit more internally consistent, and have a few more convenience shortcuts for very basic usage. But I can also see a strong argument that, as part of the Linux ecosystem, that's a perfectly good opportunity for someone who wants to build a wrapper around Git (and I believe many have). It seems to me that unless you really only want to use Git in the most basic way possible (add all your changes every commit, never roll anything back, single branch, no stashes), understanding something of Git's internal model is less like understanding how the compiler's internals work, and more like understanding the fact that a C program needs to be compiled into object code and potentially linked into an executable before it can be run.