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I found that the syntax _was_ the hard part of git. That and the often-terrible man pages. Both docs and syntax are inconsistent, verging on random, and full of

• ajross 15y ago
  I'd be curious to see a few examples. Git is guilty of using a bunch of non-standard nomenclature, and of using existing terms in non-standard ways ("checkout", I'm looking at you). But I certainly wouldn't call the interface or syntax "inconsistent" or "random". It's actually very tersely designed and very well put together. The "actual concepts" are, for the most part, first class citizens in the interface.
  • hp 15y ago
    I agree with basically everything Elijah has to say here for example: http://people.gnome.org/~newren/eg/git-eg-differences.html http://people.gnome.org/~newren/eg/git-eg-differences.html
    • ajross 15y ago
      OK, I'm seeing where you're coming from. But I guess I don't see the severity. Yes, git's terminology is highly non-orthogonal (the umpteen different synonyms for the "index" was pretty amusing). But... that's just the frosting. Who cares how messy it is if the cake is still good? Yes, it's messy. But I don't really see that it hurts comprehension. And it hurts learning only inasmuch as you can't guess at a command and have to check the man page (i.e. I know there's a diff variant that checks the index vs. HEAD, what's it called?). I can't honestly say I found it difficult to understand what the index was due to this.
  • phillmv 15y ago
    > But I certainly wouldn't call the interface or syntax "inconsistent" or "random". Uhm, NO WAY. git checkout works on both branches and files. I can `checkout remote-name/branch` but I have to `push remote-name branch`. Deleting a local branch is `branch -D` but deleting a remote branch is (I still can't fucking believe it) `push remote :branch`. It's surprisingly hard to unstage a file. If a rebase fails, it gives you exactly one warning and then forever complains about a dirty index tree. The error messages are borderline incomprehensible for someone who doesn't understand git internals (refs/head say what?). The reset command is far to easy to typo into oblivion. What else. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it, but obtaining an exact list of differences between branches is hard (git `log sha1..sha1` compared with `git log sha1...sha1`). This is just off the top of my head. Git is great, it's fast, I don't understand people who are still on svn, but the user interface is abysmal.
    • vidar 15y ago
      Yeah, deleting a remote branch by "git push remote :branch" is pretty terrible, one colon between heaven and hell.
      • rjh29 15y ago
        If you understand how git push works, it sort of makes sense. But fortunately the devs added a --delete option to git push which is much more clear.
        • vidar 15y ago
          That is indeed clearer, thanks for the tip!
    • djacobs 15y ago
      Git checkout is actually pretty consistent and only really works on branches. When you say it works on files, you actually mean it has a shorthand that works on files: git checkout my-file ... is actually using a lot of smart defaults. Namely, you're actually running ... git checkout HEAD -- my-file If you don't specify a branch or identifier, git uses HEAD by default in most cases. (When you run git diff other-branch, you're actually running git diff HEAD other-branch.) And the dash-dash syntax is mostly optional in modern git. Not inconsistent at all, as far as I can tell. In fact, most features of git that I use on a regular basis are completely consistent and orthogonal. The exceptions are submodules and remote cache branches...
  • zwp 15y ago
    > examples git tag Lists tags; does not create new tag git stash Stashes current changes; creates new stash List tags/stashes: git stash list git tag [-l]
• noonespecial 15y ago
  An errant use of git force taught me that git is always logical, its just not always rational.