4 ms·

Anything about Git reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/EReooAZoMO0?si=sHqcYsf8v6LyWLAx https://youtu.be/EReooAZoMO0?si=sHqcYsf8v6LyWLAx

chihuahua 3y ago
Given how many smart people are confused by Git, and how many times Git's behavior needs to be explained in a way that often raises as many questions as it answers, it seems to indicate that Git's model is not at all intuitive and doesn't map well to how people generally use it to get work done. These are all people who have no problem understanding all kinds of other technologies and building complex systems from them. It's not quite in "a monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors" territory, but when this many smart people have difficulty understanding something, I think Git is to blame, not the people.
- CuriousCosmic 3y ago
  I have to serious ask. Of the people who have issues with using or understanding git, how many of them have actually read the docs? Git is by no means perfect but the development community is great and there is a massive focus on improving the project and making things more approachable and intuitive. And because of that, git actually has really solid, coherent documentation with easily digestible tutorials and guides for all the things you need to do. So it always hurts me when I see people ranting and raving about how awful git is, how it can't do x, or how it doesn't make sense how it works but then you send them the guide or tutorial hosted on the git-scm website and suddenly it makes sense. Not to be beating the RTFM horse but RTFM guys.
  - chihuahua 3y ago
    Whenever I read the Git docs, after a while I start thinking "this is all very well and good, but it doesn't seem to be related to what I'm trying to do to get my work done (usually fairly basic things)" Or I have read a bunch of pages on the git-scm site, and I'm thinking "oh yes it all makes sense now." Then I'm trying to do something in the real world, and I get bizarre messages and conflicts that don't make any sense. Or I made a mistake and want to undo it, and end up in some crazy situation. The Documentation doesn't seem to help in anything but an ideal textbook scenario with no mistakes and complications.
  - forrestthewoods 3y ago
    Git makes version control roughly 10x more complicated than it needs to be. I can teach an artist or designer who has never heard of version control how to use Perforce in roughly 5 minutes. They will never blow off their leg and will likely never lose work. It will probably be a few months before they hit some edge case where they need help. Git requires building a non-trivial mental model. Then it requires memorizing a whole bunch of unintuitive commands with unintuitive flags. > Not to be beating the RTFM horse but RTFM guys. Good tools are intuitive and can be incrementally learned without resorting to dense documentation. RTFM is definitely a solution. But when a very large number of users have consistently similar issues at some point you have to stop blaming the users and admit the tool isn't easy to learn.
    - CuriousCosmic 3y ago
      > Git makes version control roughly 10x more complicated than it needs to be. A significant part of this is that git explicitly supports more workflows than centralised VCS like subversion, perforce, or clearcase. Other than a few fairly small differences, mercurial and fossil (two other distributed VCS projects) have the same UX issues. You can't really reduce the complexity without just lopping off support. You can make that complexity more approachable/digestible (which the git devs are trying to do) but this fundamentally requires a certain willingness from the user to learn the tool. For a lot of people git ends up being a sort of cargo cult where they get through the day with a set of magical incantations that make it work and solve their problems but without any real ability to troubleshoot when they do something wrong. Which is exactly the thing that prevents them from "gitting it". And worth noting: I don't think I've ever worked with someone who has really gotten irreparably stuck with git after reading through the important parts of the user manual (not the references/man pages but the dedicated user manual [1]) and/or the git book [2]. There are some overly technical parts but they are towards the end of each. But if someone actually reads the entry-level user oriented parts of each/either document, odds are they'll understand enough to be able to actually solve their problems. 1. https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual 2. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
      - 3y ago
  - Feathercrown 3y ago
    I've read the docs. Too much explanation of command line flags, not enough practical examples. It is thorough though.
    - CuriousCosmic 3y ago
      Including the git user manual [1] and the git book [2]? People tend to skip over those and go straight to the reference/manpages. 1. https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual 2. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
      - Feathercrown 3y ago
        I got there from google so I didn't know these were a thing-- thanks!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

chihuahua 3y ago

Given how many smart people are confused by Git, and how many times Git's behavior needs to be explained in a way that often raises as many questions as it answers, it seems to indicate that Git's model is not at all intuitive and doesn't map well to how people generally use it to get work done. These are all people who have no problem understanding all kinds of other technologies and building complex systems from them. It's not quite in "a monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors" territory, but when this many smart people have difficulty understanding something, I think Git is to blame, not the people.

CuriousCosmic 3y ago
I have to serious ask. Of the people who have issues with using or understanding git, how many of them have actually read the docs? Git is by no means perfect but the development community is great and there is a massive focus on improving the project and making things more approachable and intuitive. And because of that, git actually has really solid, coherent documentation with easily digestible tutorials and guides for all the things you need to do. So it always hurts me when I see people ranting and raving about how awful git is, how it can't do x, or how it doesn't make sense how it works but then you send them the guide or tutorial hosted on the git-scm website and suddenly it makes sense. Not to be beating the RTFM horse but RTFM guys.
- chihuahua 3y ago
  Whenever I read the Git docs, after a while I start thinking "this is all very well and good, but it doesn't seem to be related to what I'm trying to do to get my work done (usually fairly basic things)" Or I have read a bunch of pages on the git-scm site, and I'm thinking "oh yes it all makes sense now." Then I'm trying to do something in the real world, and I get bizarre messages and conflicts that don't make any sense. Or I made a mistake and want to undo it, and end up in some crazy situation. The Documentation doesn't seem to help in anything but an ideal textbook scenario with no mistakes and complications.
- forrestthewoods 3y ago
  Git makes version control roughly 10x more complicated than it needs to be. I can teach an artist or designer who has never heard of version control how to use Perforce in roughly 5 minutes. They will never blow off their leg and will likely never lose work. It will probably be a few months before they hit some edge case where they need help. Git requires building a non-trivial mental model. Then it requires memorizing a whole bunch of unintuitive commands with unintuitive flags. > Not to be beating the RTFM horse but RTFM guys. Good tools are intuitive and can be incrementally learned without resorting to dense documentation. RTFM is definitely a solution. But when a very large number of users have consistently similar issues at some point you have to stop blaming the users and admit the tool isn't easy to learn.
  - CuriousCosmic 3y ago
    > Git makes version control roughly 10x more complicated than it needs to be. A significant part of this is that git explicitly supports more workflows than centralised VCS like subversion, perforce, or clearcase. Other than a few fairly small differences, mercurial and fossil (two other distributed VCS projects) have the same UX issues. You can't really reduce the complexity without just lopping off support. You can make that complexity more approachable/digestible (which the git devs are trying to do) but this fundamentally requires a certain willingness from the user to learn the tool. For a lot of people git ends up being a sort of cargo cult where they get through the day with a set of magical incantations that make it work and solve their problems but without any real ability to troubleshoot when they do something wrong. Which is exactly the thing that prevents them from "gitting it". And worth noting: I don't think I've ever worked with someone who has really gotten irreparably stuck with git after reading through the important parts of the user manual (not the references/man pages but the dedicated user manual [1]) and/or the git book [2]. There are some overly technical parts but they are towards the end of each. But if someone actually reads the entry-level user oriented parts of each/either document, odds are they'll understand enough to be able to actually solve their problems. 1. https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual 2. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
    - 3y ago
- Feathercrown 3y ago
  I've read the docs. Too much explanation of command line flags, not enough practical examples. It is thorough though.
  - CuriousCosmic 3y ago
    Including the git user manual [1] and the git book [2]? People tend to skip over those and go straight to the reference/manpages. 1. https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual https://git-scm.com/docs/user-manual 2. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
    - Feathercrown 3y ago
      I got there from google so I didn't know these were a thing-- thanks!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]