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> (...) the biggest problem by far is that git is dangerous out of the box - it can destroy your work very easily or leave you in an unrecoverable state. It's

by jxf 13y ago

> (...) the biggest problem by far is that git is dangerous out of the box - it can destroy your work very easily or leave you in an unrecoverable state. It's almost impossible to leave git in "an unrecoverable state", short of actually deleting your ".git" directory. If you do wind up in a bad spot, that's what the ref-log is for [0]. If you've made an error that is difficult or complicated to unwind, no sweat: hit the reflog and go back in time to the point where things were the way you wanted. git is many things -- frequently useful, often complicated, sometimes obtuse. But it's almost always safe. [0]: https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-reflog.html https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-reflog....

jheriko 13y ago
I will concede that it might be safe in this sense - unrecoverable is too strong a word. My real world experience of this is that twice I've seen people frantically trying to work out this same problem of reverting a change and finding it difficult even to get a copy of the repo that matches the desired state. Granted it works easily in the most common case, but I've never seen thus problem arise with cvs, svn, hg or p4... Its sensible to use simpler tools if they are more practical, ie I have to learn less to get what I want from those tools. This seems to be a general problem with git currently - many commands need lots of switches or background knowledge to become useful and its really not necessary IMO. It would be nice to see that improve...
steveklabnik 13y ago
> git reflog This, a thousand times this. Unless you happen to randomly run `git gc` for some odd reason, you have a few months (with default settings) until your repo is in an unrecoverable state, unless you touch the .git directory directly.
- JoshTriplett 13y ago
  Even if you do run git gc, by default git will still keep the reflog and all objects reachable from it around for 30 days.
- jheriko 13y ago
  a few people have suggested this. disappointed that my initial google searches did not reveal this to me...
- jheriko 13y ago
  I appreciate the effort you have made in trying to educate me here - reflog does look like it might have helped to solve my problem although it is extremely non-obvious even after running it. (i.e. i know i need to google or read something else rather than how to solve the problem). I have recreated the problem I originally had and documented precisely why it really is a usability problem. Now that I have done this I am pretty sure that my anti-git sentiment is warranted - even if my initial comment was massively too harsh. http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html
jheriko 13y ago
I appreciate the effort you have made in trying to educate me here - reflog does look like it might have helped to solve my problem although it is extremely non-obvious even after running it. (i.e. i know i need to google or read something else rather than how to solve the problem). I have recreated the problem I originally had and documented precisely why it really is a usability problem. Now that I have done this I am pretty sure that my anti-git sentiment is warranted - even if my initial comment was massively too harsh. http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html
- jxf 13y ago
  I agree that git can be characterized as having some usability issues; I initially found the documentation obtuse in many places. My favorite git joke, by far: "git gets easier once you get the basic idea that branches are homeomorphic endofunctors mapping submanifolds of a Hilbert space." If you're having trouble understanding git but you find yourself comfortable with basic CS terms, you might want to check out Git for Computer Scientists [0]. This really helped put it in perspective for me. [0] http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists/ http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists/

by jxf 13y ago

jheriko 13y ago

I will concede that it might be safe in this sense - unrecoverable is too strong a word. My real world experience of this is that twice I've seen people frantically trying to work out this same problem of reverting a change and finding it difficult even to get a copy of the repo that matches the desired state. Granted it works easily in the most common case, but I've never seen thus problem arise with cvs, svn, hg or p4... Its sensible to use simpler tools if they are more practical, ie I have to learn less to get what I want from those tools. This seems to be a general problem with git currently - many commands need lots of switches or background knowledge to become useful and its really not necessary IMO. It would be nice to see that improve...

steveklabnik 13y ago

> git reflog This, a thousand times this. Unless you happen to randomly run `git gc` for some odd reason, you have a few months (with default settings) until your repo is in an unrecoverable state, unless you touch the .git directory directly.

JoshTriplett 13y ago
Even if you do run git gc, by default git will still keep the reflog and all objects reachable from it around for 30 days.
jheriko 13y ago
a few people have suggested this. disappointed that my initial google searches did not reveal this to me...
jheriko 13y ago
I appreciate the effort you have made in trying to educate me here - reflog does look like it might have helped to solve my problem although it is extremely non-obvious even after running it. (i.e. i know i need to google or read something else rather than how to solve the problem). I have recreated the problem I originally had and documented precisely why it really is a usability problem. Now that I have done this I am pretty sure that my anti-git sentiment is warranted - even if my initial comment was massively too harsh. http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html

jheriko 13y ago

I appreciate the effort you have made in trying to educate me here - reflog does look like it might have helped to solve my problem although it is extremely non-obvious even after running it. (i.e. i know i need to google or read something else rather than how to solve the problem). I have recreated the problem I originally had and documented precisely why it really is a usability problem. Now that I have done this I am pretty sure that my anti-git sentiment is warranted - even if my initial comment was massively too harsh. http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html http://jheriko-rtw.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-i-hate-git.html

jxf 13y ago
I agree that git can be characterized as having some usability issues; I initially found the documentation obtuse in many places. My favorite git joke, by far: "git gets easier once you get the basic idea that branches are homeomorphic endofunctors mapping submanifolds of a Hilbert space." If you're having trouble understanding git but you find yourself comfortable with basic CS terms, you might want to check out Git for Computer Scientists [0]. This really helped put it in perspective for me. [0] http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists/ http://eagain.net/articles/git-for-computer-scientists/