4 ms·

Everyone uses software differently; brains work different. I've used Git on the command line for almost a decade now, and I find my current workflow much nicer.

by kneath 12y ago

Everyone uses software differently; brains work different. I've used Git on the command line for almost a decade now, and I find my current workflow much nicer. You also left out a lot of the (again simple) commands I've included — switching branches and partial commits, where things like fuzzy autocomplete are very nice if your shell does not hook into Git and support fuzziness.

timr 12y ago
Good point. I left them out because there's more than one way to do it, and if you let a GUI tool do it for you, you become ignorant of those issues: git checkout -b new_branch <edit edit edit> git commit -a -m "i'll merge this branch" git checkout master git merge new_branch vs: git checkout -b new_branch <edit edit edit> git commit -a -m "did stuff that i'll rebase this time" git fetch git rebase origin/master git checkout master git merge new_branch vs: git checkout -b new_branch <edit foo.txt and bar.txt> git add foo.txt git commit -m "edited foo" git stash ... People think differently, but nothing you've described is conceptually different than using the CLI. It's just a GUI, doing/obscuring the same stuff -- stuff that you need to understand to use git.
- ianstormtaylor 12y ago
  We have barely technical people on the team who use GitHub for Mac because they aren't comfortable in a CLI, but they are very comfortable using a regular application they can launch from their doc. That way GitHub gets to design around Git edge cases, and they don't have to get screwed when weird things happen in the CLI.
  - timr 12y ago
    Yeah, that's the classic argument for wrapping a CLI with a GUI. The only problem is that with git, you can't design around the "weird things"...if the user is in a weird state in version control, they need to know about it. In other words, it's the leaky abstraction problem. You can pretty up the UI, but ultimately, you have to communicate the concept to the user. It's how we got those "Can I copy The Internet?" questions in Windows 95....
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  I've found myself using a combination of both GitHub app, and CLI. Usually I'll checkout repos, make commits and push/pull using the GitHub app. Then I'll switch over to the CLI for branching, merging, resetting and bitsecting (the latter two arent possible in the GitHub app)

by kneath 12y ago

timr 12y ago

Good point. I left them out because there's more than one way to do it, and if you let a GUI tool do it for you, you become ignorant of those issues: git checkout -b new_branch <edit edit edit> git commit -a -m "i'll merge this branch" git checkout master git merge new_branch vs: git checkout -b new_branch <edit edit edit> git commit -a -m "did stuff that i'll rebase this time" git fetch git rebase origin/master git checkout master git merge new_branch vs: git checkout -b new_branch <edit foo.txt and bar.txt> git add foo.txt git commit -m "edited foo" git stash ... People think differently, but nothing you've described is conceptually different than using the CLI. It's just a GUI, doing/obscuring the same stuff -- stuff that you need to understand to use git.

ianstormtaylor 12y ago
We have barely technical people on the team who use GitHub for Mac because they aren't comfortable in a CLI, but they are very comfortable using a regular application they can launch from their doc. That way GitHub gets to design around Git edge cases, and they don't have to get screwed when weird things happen in the CLI.
- timr 12y ago
  Yeah, that's the classic argument for wrapping a CLI with a GUI. The only problem is that with git, you can't design around the "weird things"...if the user is in a weird state in version control, they need to know about it. In other words, it's the leaky abstraction problem. You can pretty up the UI, but ultimately, you have to communicate the concept to the user. It's how we got those "Can I copy The Internet?" questions in Windows 95....
madeofpalk 12y ago
I've found myself using a combination of both GitHub app, and CLI. Usually I'll checkout repos, make commits and push/pull using the GitHub app. Then I'll switch over to the CLI for branching, merging, resetting and bitsecting (the latter two arent possible in the GitHub app)