14 ms·

The most powerful git feature John Kary just learned about. These linkbait headlines drive me crazy.

rplnt 13y ago
I really hate these presuming "you don't know about" (a dozens of other variations) titles. This by itself makes me not want to read the article at all. And I didn't use or know about the feature.
zedpm 13y ago
Does the top comment in _every_ HN post have to be an argument, criticism, or complaint? If you don't find value in a given post, then just move on. I suspect a lot of folks had indeed never heard of this feature before now. I found this introduction to git add -p to be extremely helpful. I've found myself in the position he describes (wanting to logically separate changes I've made to a file) many times, and I've usually handled it in a sub-optimal manner (making one commit that describes multiple changes).
- FrozenCow 13y ago
  The 'problem' is that this tip has been posted a lot on HN/Reddit. It becomes annoying for some people to keep reading about a "git feature you're not using yet". That said, the feature isn't well-known for everyone and it is very useful, so you can only expect negative as well as positive comments.
  - chaz 13y ago
    The upvotes seem to validate the article's value, even if the topic has been posted in the past.
  - Killswitch 13y ago
    I've been a HN user for 701 days (as of today). This is the first time I've seen this topic here.. Sorry not all of us are on HN 24/7. This is new to me, and I appreciate it being posted, because guess what? I've never known of git add -p. Now I do. But wait, what if the person who posted this did indeed see something similar posted here last year and never posted it? Great, now I won't ever have known this great feature. Like stated before. Don't like the content? Don't upvote it. Move on. The complaining in every thread about these things are more annoying than seeing the same thing posted again after a month or two.
- aeonsky 13y ago
  Because the title provides a statement without any evidence and is downright condescending?
revscat 13y ago
I, too, see stories on HN that are passing on information that I was already aware of. Instead of commenting on their obviousness, though, I just move on to the next story and let those who did not previously know enjoy their new found knowledge. I don't presume myself their better because I happened to be aware of it first. Also, relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1053/ http://xkcd.com/1053/
- sltkr 13y ago
  I think the complaint is about the presumptuousness of the title of the post, not so much the obviousness of the content.
  - stanmancan 13y ago
    This title isn't even really link bait. It tells you the feature in thw title. If you know what the "p" flag does, no need to click on the link to find out. For those that don't know of the feature, it is enticing enough to get them to check it out
    - aeonsky 13y ago
      Or he could go with the much friendlier and less elitist: "feature you might not be aware of", "feature you might not be using yet".
    - xmlninja 13y ago
      Im mostly disturbed by the "most powerful" part because this is subjective to project and how you work. It's not a very common case for me to commit parts of changes in a file because in most of my cases all changes I do to a file belong to the same commit since I work with feature branches. However when I do need this it's indeed powerful but judging by the enthusiasm of the post and title it just smells like the endorphin release of new feature discovering.
      - ryansouza 13y ago
        Even with topic branches, I find staging with -p to be a nice chance to review the diff piece by piece. Helps me build good commit messages, and makes it easy to split changes in to a set of commits if I feel thats necessary.
gafads 13y ago
Do you know what drives me crazy? It's little men with a desire to feel superior who complain about inconsequential titles in an attempt to come across as intellectuals.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  Good thing I am not a little man.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Imagine a vast school, with all the kids intermingling, and one shouts up and says "My God I understand algebra!". This is a signal for the kids who are struggling with algebra to head in their direction and ask questions or copy the homework answers. Its also a good signal for kids who are working on groking calculus that he is not to be listened to. To avoid this in schools we sit kids in age-related classes, of small size. But the world is a big school and there is no central authority who knows what we should learn and when. We just need better filters to block out the noise of algebra-learning kids while we work on infinite series. Those filters might be news-style forums, at least until there are too many kids at different stages on here. Then we have to work on our own filters. And listen for the kid who shouts "My god, I built a filter to ignore calculus learning kids!" Edit: OK, Ok there is a difference between link-bait headlines and pre-known content. But the kid has to shout something.
ronyeh 13y ago
It'd be nice if people stopped complaining about articles being old news. The guy posted this in 2012, and said he learned it a year ago (2011). If you already know the feature, move on to the next article. Other people don't know about this feature and upvoted it.
johnkary 13y ago
Author of the post here. I obviously didn't just learn about patch mode... git has many powerful features, but I feel this is the most powerful of those that many git users don't know about yet that will make the biggest positive impact in their daily git use. Not that patch mode is the most powerful feature git has.
niix 13y ago
Exactly. Been using -p for a long time.

rplnt 13y ago

I really hate these presuming "you don't know about" (a dozens of other variations) titles. This by itself makes me not want to read the article at all. And I didn't use or know about the feature.

zedpm 13y ago

Does the top comment in _every_ HN post have to be an argument, criticism, or complaint? If you don't find value in a given post, then just move on. I suspect a lot of folks had indeed never heard of this feature before now. I found this introduction to git add -p to be extremely helpful. I've found myself in the position he describes (wanting to logically separate changes I've made to a file) many times, and I've usually handled it in a sub-optimal manner (making one commit that describes multiple changes).

FrozenCow 13y ago
The 'problem' is that this tip has been posted a lot on HN/Reddit. It becomes annoying for some people to keep reading about a "git feature you're not using yet". That said, the feature isn't well-known for everyone and it is very useful, so you can only expect negative as well as positive comments.
- chaz 13y ago
  The upvotes seem to validate the article's value, even if the topic has been posted in the past.
- Killswitch 13y ago
  I've been a HN user for 701 days (as of today). This is the first time I've seen this topic here.. Sorry not all of us are on HN 24/7. This is new to me, and I appreciate it being posted, because guess what? I've never known of git add -p. Now I do. But wait, what if the person who posted this did indeed see something similar posted here last year and never posted it? Great, now I won't ever have known this great feature. Like stated before. Don't like the content? Don't upvote it. Move on. The complaining in every thread about these things are more annoying than seeing the same thing posted again after a month or two.
aeonsky 13y ago
Because the title provides a statement without any evidence and is downright condescending?

revscat 13y ago

I, too, see stories on HN that are passing on information that I was already aware of. Instead of commenting on their obviousness, though, I just move on to the next story and let those who did not previously know enjoy their new found knowledge. I don't presume myself their better because I happened to be aware of it first. Also, relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1053/ http://xkcd.com/1053/

sltkr 13y ago
I think the complaint is about the presumptuousness of the title of the post, not so much the obviousness of the content.
- stanmancan 13y ago
  This title isn't even really link bait. It tells you the feature in thw title. If you know what the "p" flag does, no need to click on the link to find out. For those that don't know of the feature, it is enticing enough to get them to check it out
  - aeonsky 13y ago
    Or he could go with the much friendlier and less elitist: "feature you might not be aware of", "feature you might not be using yet".
  - xmlninja 13y ago
    Im mostly disturbed by the "most powerful" part because this is subjective to project and how you work. It's not a very common case for me to commit parts of changes in a file because in most of my cases all changes I do to a file belong to the same commit since I work with feature branches. However when I do need this it's indeed powerful but judging by the enthusiasm of the post and title it just smells like the endorphin release of new feature discovering.
    - ryansouza 13y ago
      Even with topic branches, I find staging with -p to be a nice chance to review the diff piece by piece. Helps me build good commit messages, and makes it easy to split changes in to a set of commits if I feel thats necessary.

gafads 13y ago

Do you know what drives me crazy? It's little men with a desire to feel superior who complain about inconsequential titles in an attempt to come across as intellectuals.

colinbartlett 13y ago
Good thing I am not a little man.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

Imagine a vast school, with all the kids intermingling, and one shouts up and says "My God I understand algebra!". This is a signal for the kids who are struggling with algebra to head in their direction and ask questions or copy the homework answers. Its also a good signal for kids who are working on groking calculus that he is not to be listened to. To avoid this in schools we sit kids in age-related classes, of small size. But the world is a big school and there is no central authority who knows what we should learn and when. We just need better filters to block out the noise of algebra-learning kids while we work on infinite series. Those filters might be news-style forums, at least until there are too many kids at different stages on here. Then we have to work on our own filters. And listen for the kid who shouts "My god, I built a filter to ignore calculus learning kids!" Edit: OK, Ok there is a difference between link-bait headlines and pre-known content. But the kid has to shout something.

ronyeh 13y ago

It'd be nice if people stopped complaining about articles being old news. The guy posted this in 2012, and said he learned it a year ago (2011). If you already know the feature, move on to the next article. Other people don't know about this feature and upvoted it.

johnkary 13y ago

Author of the post here. I obviously didn't just learn about patch mode... git has many powerful features, but I feel this is the most powerful of those that many git users don't know about yet that will make the biggest positive impact in their daily git use. Not that patch mode is the most powerful feature git has.

niix 13y ago

Exactly. Been using -p for a long time.