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At first glance I thought the author was plain wrong, but I think there is some good insight here. This workflow works very well for the author. Most of us can

At first glance I thought the author was plain wrong, but I think there is some good insight here. This workflow works very well for the author. Most of us can probably think of a time when Git or automated tests frustrated us or made us less productive. There are similar solutions that are simpler and get out of the way, e.g. backing up code with Dropbox, FTP, whatever. The above is works well because the author is optimizing for their productivity on a passion project where they collaborate with few others. Automated tests are useful, but it sounds like the author likes creating programs so small that the value might not surface. I think that automated tests still have value even in this context, but I think we can all agree that automated tests slow you down (though many would argue that you see eventual returns). Version control and automated tests solve real problems. It would be insane to start a project without VC today, and automated tests are a best practice for a reason. But, for the authors particular use case, this sounds reasonable. --- Aside from the controversial bits around VC/tests, I think items 7/8/9 perfectly capture my mindset when writing/refactoring a large program. Write, throw it away, write again.

fendy3002 2y ago
Disagree on VC, even for solo project and no multiple version branching. Human make mistakes, knowing what you change in the last 3 weeks for >100k LOC project are godsend. It helps to find and fix issues. The better feature is branching out, because you can do what you want while still having a way to go back to previous stable. As for automated tests? That's fine.
- yellowapple 2y ago
  I think it's still worth asking "which VC?" through that lens, though. Git was designed for developing the Linux kernel - with countless LOC and contributors and commits pouring in constantly. It happened to also be readily suitable for GitHub's model of "social" FOSS development, with its PRs and such (a model that most other Git hosting systems have adopted). ...but that ain't applicable to all projects, or possibly even most projects. The vast majority of my FOSS contributions have been on projects with one or maybe two primary authors, and without all that many PRs. What is Git, or any particular Git repository host (GitHub included), really offering me? I need to track changes (so I can revert them if necessary), I need to backup the code I'm writing, and I need to distribute said code (and possibly builds thereof). Just about any VCS can do those things. I ended up trying Fossil for various new projects, and I'm liking it enough that I plan on migrating my existing projects into Fossil repos (with Git mirroring) at some point, too. It's unsurprisingly more optimized toward the needs of the SQLite development team - a small cathedral rather than a Linux-style giant bazaar - and considering that all my projects' development "teams" are tiny cathedrals it ain't terribly surprising that Fossil would be the right fit.
fragmede 2y ago
imo taking the time to learn enough git to setup an ignore file, then run be able to run git init; git add -A, git commit -a -m "before I changed the foo function to use bar" and then go back to older revisions is well worth it. you don't have to master it, but just having a commit message and a version to get back to has saved my bacon more times than I can remember, nevermind more advanced operations.

fendy3002 2y ago

Disagree on VC, even for solo project and no multiple version branching. Human make mistakes, knowing what you change in the last 3 weeks for >100k LOC project are godsend. It helps to find and fix issues. The better feature is branching out, because you can do what you want while still having a way to go back to previous stable. As for automated tests? That's fine.

yellowapple 2y ago
I think it's still worth asking "which VC?" through that lens, though. Git was designed for developing the Linux kernel - with countless LOC and contributors and commits pouring in constantly. It happened to also be readily suitable for GitHub's model of "social" FOSS development, with its PRs and such (a model that most other Git hosting systems have adopted). ...but that ain't applicable to all projects, or possibly even most projects. The vast majority of my FOSS contributions have been on projects with one or maybe two primary authors, and without all that many PRs. What is Git, or any particular Git repository host (GitHub included), really offering me? I need to track changes (so I can revert them if necessary), I need to backup the code I'm writing, and I need to distribute said code (and possibly builds thereof). Just about any VCS can do those things. I ended up trying Fossil for various new projects, and I'm liking it enough that I plan on migrating my existing projects into Fossil repos (with Git mirroring) at some point, too. It's unsurprisingly more optimized toward the needs of the SQLite development team - a small cathedral rather than a Linux-style giant bazaar - and considering that all my projects' development "teams" are tiny cathedrals it ain't terribly surprising that Fossil would be the right fit.

fragmede 2y ago

imo taking the time to learn enough git to setup an ignore file, then run be able to run git init; git add -A, git commit -a -m "before I changed the foo function to use bar" and then go back to older revisions is well worth it. you don't have to master it, but just having a commit message and a version to get back to has saved my bacon more times than I can remember, nevermind more advanced operations.