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Is it bad that Git has become a defacto standard? I do think the saturation of GitHub is problematic (for obvious reasons) but at this point Git feels as generi

Is it bad that Git has become a defacto standard? I do think the saturation of GitHub is problematic (for obvious reasons) but at this point Git feels as generic to me as like, I dunno, DNS. Unless there's more going on that I'm not aware of, which is always possible!

w0m 2y ago
is github still aggregating ~everything like it used to? I'm interested what effect the Microsoft had on overall adoption.
sverhagen 2y ago
Personally, I enjoy that we rally around a common set of tools, as an industry. And Git is probably the best choice in its category. But that may have to do as much with adoption and network effect as it has with inherent quality. It's an advanced tool, but many folks struggle with the less common tasks, while many others struggle with even fairly basic things like a rebase. In an ideal world, if I imagine it, there'd be a tool like Git that lives at a different plane of usability. And I am unsure that a monoculture would be very encouraging in ever getting us there.
- internetter 2y ago
  For a while, I was an absolutist on the git CLI. Recently though, I've been using fork for git. I've found that it is much easier to do rebases on it than the interactive mode. It's good to have something as powerful as git, and then build upon it to make it accessible to everyone.
- gregschlom 2y ago
  > In an ideal world, if I imagine it, there'd be a tool like Git that lives at a different plane of usability Isn't that exactly what Mercurial is trying to be?
  - sverhagen 2y ago
    Sure, but what's the point if the entire universe is pushing you toward Git. I understand that Mercurial has non-zero usage, just not anywhere where I ever worked.
- 999900000999 2y ago
  It's a tool that's as powerful as you need it to be. On my personal projects I basically just git add . , git commit . -m stuff , git push. Do that every 30 minutes and it's effectively a better Dropbox. If I'm doing something more advanced I'll checkout a branch every now and then. The only time things get hard is when multiple people are editing the same file.
- wilsonnb3 2y ago
  There are version control tools that are git compatible, like Sapling from Meta. I think the likeliest future is that one or more of these catch on and Git is still around in the future but is not used directly by most people. https://sapling-scm.com/docs/introduction/getting-started/ https://sapling-scm.com/docs/introduction/getting-started/ https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/15/open-source/sapling-source-control-scalable/ https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/15/open-source/sapling-so...
rnewme 2y ago
Hit is not as good as mercurial for binary files afaik
- astrange 2y ago
  There are some extensions like git-lfs, though I haven't used them much. I do wish it was easier to check out repos without getting ginormous .git directories sitting around - even a shallow checkout doesn't help if it's got currently existing giant files in there.
myaccountonhn 2y ago
Well git was a tool built for bazaar style development. If you’re a closed group of trusted developers, I think fossil is a better solution. Fossil comes with issue tracker, forum, chat and perfect offline support for all of them, and is much much simpler to use than git. Git in general is just very confusing for new users. Then there is also darcs as an alternative to git that has an innovative approach to patches that has advantages. Personally I think we have GitHub monoculture in part because git on its own is insufficient. People in general don’t like the email flow (though personally I love it).
throw0101d 2y ago
> Is it bad that Git has become a defacto standard? It is a bit of meme/trope that Git's CLI can be a real challenge to use: * https://xkcd.com/1597/ https://xkcd.com/1597/

w0m 2y ago

is github still aggregating ~everything like it used to? I'm interested what effect the Microsoft had on overall adoption.

sverhagen 2y ago

Personally, I enjoy that we rally around a common set of tools, as an industry. And Git is probably the best choice in its category. But that may have to do as much with adoption and network effect as it has with inherent quality. It's an advanced tool, but many folks struggle with the less common tasks, while many others struggle with even fairly basic things like a rebase. In an ideal world, if I imagine it, there'd be a tool like Git that lives at a different plane of usability. And I am unsure that a monoculture would be very encouraging in ever getting us there.

internetter 2y ago
For a while, I was an absolutist on the git CLI. Recently though, I've been using fork for git. I've found that it is much easier to do rebases on it than the interactive mode. It's good to have something as powerful as git, and then build upon it to make it accessible to everyone.
gregschlom 2y ago
> In an ideal world, if I imagine it, there'd be a tool like Git that lives at a different plane of usability Isn't that exactly what Mercurial is trying to be?
- sverhagen 2y ago
  Sure, but what's the point if the entire universe is pushing you toward Git. I understand that Mercurial has non-zero usage, just not anywhere where I ever worked.
999900000999 2y ago
It's a tool that's as powerful as you need it to be. On my personal projects I basically just git add . , git commit . -m stuff , git push. Do that every 30 minutes and it's effectively a better Dropbox. If I'm doing something more advanced I'll checkout a branch every now and then. The only time things get hard is when multiple people are editing the same file.
wilsonnb3 2y ago
There are version control tools that are git compatible, like Sapling from Meta. I think the likeliest future is that one or more of these catch on and Git is still around in the future but is not used directly by most people. https://sapling-scm.com/docs/introduction/getting-started/ https://sapling-scm.com/docs/introduction/getting-started/ https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/15/open-source/sapling-source-control-scalable/ https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/15/open-source/sapling-so...

rnewme 2y ago

Hit is not as good as mercurial for binary files afaik

astrange 2y ago
There are some extensions like git-lfs, though I haven't used them much. I do wish it was easier to check out repos without getting ginormous .git directories sitting around - even a shallow checkout doesn't help if it's got currently existing giant files in there.

myaccountonhn 2y ago

Well git was a tool built for bazaar style development. If you’re a closed group of trusted developers, I think fossil is a better solution. Fossil comes with issue tracker, forum, chat and perfect offline support for all of them, and is much much simpler to use than git. Git in general is just very confusing for new users. Then there is also darcs as an alternative to git that has an innovative approach to patches that has advantages. Personally I think we have GitHub monoculture in part because git on its own is insufficient. People in general don’t like the email flow (though personally I love it).

throw0101d 2y ago

> Is it bad that Git has become a defacto standard? It is a bit of meme/trope that Git's CLI can be a real challenge to use: * https://xkcd.com/1597/ https://xkcd.com/1597/