6 ms·

Of course there is a room for improvement... One of the biggest issues is usability/user experience: pull, fetch, checkout, commit, push, rebase - what is all t

by pulse7 3y ago

Of course there is a room for improvement... One of the biggest issues is usability/user experience: pull, fetch, checkout, commit, push, rebase - what is all this and what is the exact meaning? I need simple English terms for my work - like update and save - nothing more. Why do I need to worry about implementation details and terms? If I can not explain it to my wife, then I can not use it for binary documents which she needs to store in a repo... in this case Subversion is a better version-control-system for her documents... Just SVN Update/SVN Commit - nothing more to learn in Subversion...

zadokshi 3y ago
To be honest, I can’t even imagine what you imagine “git save” and “git update” would even do in an alternate universe.
- retpoline__ 3y ago
  This is funny because in PR oriented development I started treating commits in the same way as "save" in IDE, it's just backup of current state with irrelevant commit message. Everything is described at the end of the work in PR's description and squash merged.
  - from-nibly 3y ago
    But then you can't use blame to look at the current code state. And it also becomes a nightmare to revert your changes.
  - dolni 3y ago
    Giant PRs that are squashed into one commit are an anti-pattern. Every commit should contain exactly one logical change AND a descriptive commit message. Unfortunately a good chunk of the industry doesn't have the discipline to do this. If you have ever worked in a project where there was discipline around committing, you know there is lots of value in doing so (rebasing becomes easier, you unlock the power of bisect, log is actually useful).
    - argulane 3y ago
      This! Also doing PR code review is soo much nicer if each commit is logically self contained with a nice commit message.
- q0uaur 3y ago
  when i started out with git i made an alias to immediately do "git add . && git commit -m 'lazy' && git push" to make it easy to always save my work and ensure its on the server too. git pull is easy enough to remember + type, but i could imagine just calling it update
- happymellon 3y ago
  I would imagine git save is commit, and update is pull? I think they just want to replace some of the words with alternatives that they prefer. Because at some point someone is going to winge that update should be syncronise and not pull, and save should be push and therefore git is the worst.
dale_glass 3y ago
Then you might be better off with something like Subversion indeed. Git is distributed, and that means you can't get away from push, pull and fetch, however you name them. If want you want is a way to avoid making "New New Presentation FINAL 2", then pretty much all features of most source control systems are superfluous. To me that doesn't mean Git needs fixing, it means it's definitely not the right tool for your job.
abenga 3y ago
If the specific words used are the problem, using aliases is a straightforward way to fix them. If you do it for someone, it will break the possibility of searching for help online though.
aulin 3y ago
Imagine an electronic engineer complaining about an oscilloscope being hard to use because he cannot explain what all those knobs do to his wife. We are professionals, our tools should be powerful for the advanced user, not beginner friendly.
- JCharante 3y ago
  Agreed. Imagine a pilot complaining that the controls are not simple enough.
- dolni 3y ago
  There has been a lot of push to commoditize software engineering. Unfortunately that has resulted in a swarm of people who want developer salaries without the work or expertise. Git definitely has some warts but you are right. It is an industry tool for expert, professional use. Some complexity is inherent to the problem of version control. Learning how to use your tools is part of ANY trade.
  - tester756 3y ago
    >It is an industry tool for expert, professional use. If you were talking about things like Kubernetes, LLVM, Ghidra then I'd agree. But no git. This is not some expert tool. This tool's purpose is literally to manage your characters' history, that's it. Git could be used by any other profession that deals with letters - article writers, book writers, etc, etc.
    - allarm 3y ago
      > This tool's purpose is literally to manage your characters' history, that's it. Yes, but you seem to heavily underestimate the complexity of the problem and the volume of the use cases that git solves.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    I disagree. There’s always more that can be learned about anything but we live in a world with finite time and finite resources. So you can either devote time to learning git or you could spend it doing the actual work. The fact that git is used by experts and professionals is not an excuse for poor UX. The experts and professionals are almost never Git experts or professionals. I use my car every day, that doesn’t make me a mechanic. Having to understand the inner workings of a tool is an indication of poor design, not a gatekeep we should seek to maintain.

by pulse7 3y ago

zadokshi 3y ago

To be honest, I can’t even imagine what you imagine “git save” and “git update” would even do in an alternate universe.

retpoline__ 3y ago
This is funny because in PR oriented development I started treating commits in the same way as "save" in IDE, it's just backup of current state with irrelevant commit message. Everything is described at the end of the work in PR's description and squash merged.
- from-nibly 3y ago
  But then you can't use blame to look at the current code state. And it also becomes a nightmare to revert your changes.
- dolni 3y ago
  Giant PRs that are squashed into one commit are an anti-pattern. Every commit should contain exactly one logical change AND a descriptive commit message. Unfortunately a good chunk of the industry doesn't have the discipline to do this. If you have ever worked in a project where there was discipline around committing, you know there is lots of value in doing so (rebasing becomes easier, you unlock the power of bisect, log is actually useful).
  - argulane 3y ago
    This! Also doing PR code review is soo much nicer if each commit is logically self contained with a nice commit message.
q0uaur 3y ago
when i started out with git i made an alias to immediately do "git add . && git commit -m 'lazy' && git push" to make it easy to always save my work and ensure its on the server too. git pull is easy enough to remember + type, but i could imagine just calling it update
happymellon 3y ago
I would imagine git save is commit, and update is pull? I think they just want to replace some of the words with alternatives that they prefer. Because at some point someone is going to winge that update should be syncronise and not pull, and save should be push and therefore git is the worst.

dale_glass 3y ago

Then you might be better off with something like Subversion indeed. Git is distributed, and that means you can't get away from push, pull and fetch, however you name them. If want you want is a way to avoid making "New New Presentation FINAL 2", then pretty much all features of most source control systems are superfluous. To me that doesn't mean Git needs fixing, it means it's definitely not the right tool for your job.

abenga 3y ago

If the specific words used are the problem, using aliases is a straightforward way to fix them. If you do it for someone, it will break the possibility of searching for help online though.

aulin 3y ago

Imagine an electronic engineer complaining about an oscilloscope being hard to use because he cannot explain what all those knobs do to his wife. We are professionals, our tools should be powerful for the advanced user, not beginner friendly.

JCharante 3y ago
Agreed. Imagine a pilot complaining that the controls are not simple enough.
dolni 3y ago
There has been a lot of push to commoditize software engineering. Unfortunately that has resulted in a swarm of people who want developer salaries without the work or expertise. Git definitely has some warts but you are right. It is an industry tool for expert, professional use. Some complexity is inherent to the problem of version control. Learning how to use your tools is part of ANY trade.
- tester756 3y ago
  >It is an industry tool for expert, professional use. If you were talking about things like Kubernetes, LLVM, Ghidra then I'd agree. But no git. This is not some expert tool. This tool's purpose is literally to manage your characters' history, that's it. Git could be used by any other profession that deals with letters - article writers, book writers, etc, etc.
  - allarm 3y ago
    > This tool's purpose is literally to manage your characters' history, that's it. Yes, but you seem to heavily underestimate the complexity of the problem and the volume of the use cases that git solves.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  I disagree. There’s always more that can be learned about anything but we live in a world with finite time and finite resources. So you can either devote time to learning git or you could spend it doing the actual work. The fact that git is used by experts and professionals is not an excuse for poor UX. The experts and professionals are almost never Git experts or professionals. I use my car every day, that doesn’t make me a mechanic. Having to understand the inner workings of a tool is an indication of poor design, not a gatekeep we should seek to maintain.