5 ms·

I don't think Git is easy at all. But 20 hours seems a worthwhile investment to me for something they will likely use for at least the next decade of any serio

I don't think Git is easy at all. But 20 hours seems a worthwhile investment to me for something they will likely use for at least the next decade of any serious work with software? I'm assuming that this doesn't mean literally 20 hours of instruction.

Certhas 3y ago
There are a lot of people who could benefit from git (or who are forced to interact with it sporadically) for whom this is a real problem. The problem is also, if you don't use it daily git knowledge decays fast. There is a piece of advise that was making the rounds (unironically) at the research institute where I worked before: "Before you do anything with git, first make a local backup copy."
- bombcar 3y ago
  That’s the idea behind https://xkcd.com/1597/ https://xkcd.com/1597/ and it’s more true than people will admit.
  - jeltz 3y ago
    Can't agree. While learning git isn't trivial it is still easier than it was learning Subversion and at all places I have worked at a decent share of the devs understood git. If a dev cannot grasp git I would not trust them with any non-trivial code base.
    - Certhas 3y ago
      Nobody claims that git is impossible to use. It clearly isn't or it wouldn't be so successful. But it could demonstrably be better and easier and we are stuck in a local minimum of a good enough solution because of the network effects.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Many more people use git than just developers. Especially with GitHub in there.
    - redeeman 3y ago
      you mean merging branches? because in all other aspects, subversion is significantly simpler and i would say far better UI. Much of this also comes from not being distributed
  - evandale 3y ago
    It really isn't. git stash is the equivalent to saving your work somewhere else and getting a fresh copy.
    - Certhas 3y ago
      No it's not. The recovery strategy when you've gotten your repo into aess is "wipe, clone, restore local backup, try the git thing again". But even then, what's the benefit of using a strange git command, which means I have to track another bit of state only visible to git, which can easily be misused (by applying the stash to the wrong commit), and anyway doesn't save the actual working directory I care about (untracked files), over simply making a file system copy?
      - evandale 3y ago
        The benefit of using a strange git command would be learning what a strange git command does and then it's no longer strange. You'll learn how to create, read, update, and delete that new bit of state in git. Then you won't have to wipe, clean, restore local backup, try the git thing again. You can start saving your work somewhere else, getting a fresh copy, and then try that git thing again when you know how git stash works. What you're proposing is like not learning how an incremental compiler works and suggesting to wipe, clean, restore local backup, try to compile the thing again to fix compile errors every time you have a compile error instead of learning how an incremental compiler works.
baby 3y ago
> But 20 hours seems a worthwhile investment to me for something they will likely use for at least the next decade Yet most people just want to use VSCode and don't want to invest 20+ hours learning emacs or vim
- tuukkah 3y ago
  Interestingly, the features of Emacs, Vim and VSCode are largely orthogonal (on top of any basic text editor). Further, a lot of people advocate using CLI instead of most VSCode features. Waiting for the holy grail, you can still learn from each: * Vim key bindings for text edits * CLI commands for Git * Emacs modes such as Magit and org-mode * VSCode for tight Typescript integration, nice block structure visualisation etc. I hope some editor will combine this all. (I think Emacs will be best placed to achieve this with its extension ecosystem that already includes Magit, org-mode, evil-mode etc.)
  - cassianoleal 3y ago
    VS Code already has extensions for all that.
    - subsection1h 3y ago
      VS Code doesn't have anything comparable to Org mode. The "VS Code Org Mode" extension[1] has maybe 1% or 2% of the features of Org mode for Emacs. Go read Org mode's manual[2] from start to finish (134,062 words) and then direct us to an extension for VS Code that has comparable features (e.g., plain text spreadsheets). [1] https://github.com/vscode-org-mode/vscode-org-mode https://github.com/vscode-org-mode/vscode-org-mode [2] https://orgmode.org/org.html https://orgmode.org/org.html
      - cassianoleal 3y ago
        Fair enough! I don't use it so wouldn't know.
      - baby 3y ago
rhaway84773 3y ago
The problem is that git alternatives which achieve pretty much the same so not take 20 hours to learn. A lot of those 20 hours are spent because git has a poor UX and a poor execution model which almost requires understanding it’s underlying working and data structures to be able to use it effectively. There’s several alternatives where you can be as effective if not more in a fraction of the time. The one that I preferred was mercurial, but unfortunately since GitHub was so successful we are all forced to learn git.
- vladsanchez 3y ago
  I share your sentiment and opinion. Gitless looks, feels and smells like Mercurial (hg), which is simpler and more effective. It only took everyone 18yrs to realize it (sarcasm).
  - GeorgeTirebiter 3y ago
    What do you mean by 'more effective'?

Certhas 3y ago

There are a lot of people who could benefit from git (or who are forced to interact with it sporadically) for whom this is a real problem. The problem is also, if you don't use it daily git knowledge decays fast. There is a piece of advise that was making the rounds (unironically) at the research institute where I worked before: "Before you do anything with git, first make a local backup copy."

bombcar 3y ago
That’s the idea behind https://xkcd.com/1597/ https://xkcd.com/1597/ and it’s more true than people will admit.
- jeltz 3y ago
  Can't agree. While learning git isn't trivial it is still easier than it was learning Subversion and at all places I have worked at a decent share of the devs understood git. If a dev cannot grasp git I would not trust them with any non-trivial code base.
  - Certhas 3y ago
    Nobody claims that git is impossible to use. It clearly isn't or it wouldn't be so successful. But it could demonstrably be better and easier and we are stuck in a local minimum of a good enough solution because of the network effects.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Many more people use git than just developers. Especially with GitHub in there.
  - redeeman 3y ago
    you mean merging branches? because in all other aspects, subversion is significantly simpler and i would say far better UI. Much of this also comes from not being distributed
- evandale 3y ago
  It really isn't. git stash is the equivalent to saving your work somewhere else and getting a fresh copy.
  - Certhas 3y ago
    No it's not. The recovery strategy when you've gotten your repo into aess is "wipe, clone, restore local backup, try the git thing again". But even then, what's the benefit of using a strange git command, which means I have to track another bit of state only visible to git, which can easily be misused (by applying the stash to the wrong commit), and anyway doesn't save the actual working directory I care about (untracked files), over simply making a file system copy?
    - evandale 3y ago
      The benefit of using a strange git command would be learning what a strange git command does and then it's no longer strange. You'll learn how to create, read, update, and delete that new bit of state in git. Then you won't have to wipe, clean, restore local backup, try the git thing again. You can start saving your work somewhere else, getting a fresh copy, and then try that git thing again when you know how git stash works. What you're proposing is like not learning how an incremental compiler works and suggesting to wipe, clean, restore local backup, try to compile the thing again to fix compile errors every time you have a compile error instead of learning how an incremental compiler works.

baby 3y ago

> But 20 hours seems a worthwhile investment to me for something they will likely use for at least the next decade Yet most people just want to use VSCode and don't want to invest 20+ hours learning emacs or vim

tuukkah 3y ago
Interestingly, the features of Emacs, Vim and VSCode are largely orthogonal (on top of any basic text editor). Further, a lot of people advocate using CLI instead of most VSCode features. Waiting for the holy grail, you can still learn from each: * Vim key bindings for text edits * CLI commands for Git * Emacs modes such as Magit and org-mode * VSCode for tight Typescript integration, nice block structure visualisation etc. I hope some editor will combine this all. (I think Emacs will be best placed to achieve this with its extension ecosystem that already includes Magit, org-mode, evil-mode etc.)
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  VS Code already has extensions for all that.
  - subsection1h 3y ago
    VS Code doesn't have anything comparable to Org mode. The "VS Code Org Mode" extension[1] has maybe 1% or 2% of the features of Org mode for Emacs. Go read Org mode's manual[2] from start to finish (134,062 words) and then direct us to an extension for VS Code that has comparable features (e.g., plain text spreadsheets). [1] https://github.com/vscode-org-mode/vscode-org-mode https://github.com/vscode-org-mode/vscode-org-mode [2] https://orgmode.org/org.html https://orgmode.org/org.html
    - cassianoleal 3y ago
      Fair enough! I don't use it so wouldn't know.
    - baby 3y ago

rhaway84773 3y ago

The problem is that git alternatives which achieve pretty much the same so not take 20 hours to learn. A lot of those 20 hours are spent because git has a poor UX and a poor execution model which almost requires understanding it’s underlying working and data structures to be able to use it effectively. There’s several alternatives where you can be as effective if not more in a fraction of the time. The one that I preferred was mercurial, but unfortunately since GitHub was so successful we are all forced to learn git.

vladsanchez 3y ago
I share your sentiment and opinion. Gitless looks, feels and smells like Mercurial (hg), which is simpler and more effective. It only took everyone 18yrs to realize it (sarcasm).
- GeorgeTirebiter 3y ago
  What do you mean by 'more effective'?