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> For 95% of developers, git is a tool that is incidental to their primary task (developing software). Ehh, either those 95% of developers are working on small

by coldpie 12y ago

> For 95% of developers, git is a tool that is incidental to their primary task (developing software). Ehh, either those 95% of developers are working on small projects, or they're not working as effectively as they could. Version control is just as much a part of software development as your compiler or your text editor. Incidental, sure, but how you use those tools is critical to your final output. Being able to quickly and easily bisect the tree is critical, and this requires that your commits are small and self-contained. Being able to do development and backport patches to older versions of your software is similarly critical, and so it has to be super easy to make a new branch and port the patch across to that branch. Just like I couldn't do my job without a text editor or without a compiler, I couldn't develop complex software without version control. I know my text editor very well so that I can write efficiently. I know my compiler well enough to use it to build my programs in the various configurations I need. I don't see why the version control software should be any less important to master.

Solarsail 12y ago
>I know my text editor very well so that I can write efficiently. I know my compiler well enough to use it to build my programs in the various configurations I need. Aren't these somewhat different details to know tho, compared to knowing the insides of git? Knowing the commands, and options available in an editor is familiarity with an interface. You don't need to know exactly how it stores the buffer so it can stay responsive with large files, you don't need to know the rendering algorithms involved, etc. etc. Just the same, I don't think being able to use a compiler effectively depends on knowing how it does register allocation, or knowing if the parser is LALR or recursive descent. These are all implementation details. Good interfaces generally abstract over them, and present the user with what they need to use it. Version control being necessary doesn't change how people should approach learning it. At least, no more than we should expect good drivers to understand piston engines. (Though, drivers of manual transmission cars should probably understand clutches. Maybe Git is comparable to that?)

by coldpie 12y ago

Solarsail 12y ago

>I know my text editor very well so that I can write efficiently. I know my compiler well enough to use it to build my programs in the various configurations I need. Aren't these somewhat different details to know tho, compared to knowing the insides of git? Knowing the commands, and options available in an editor is familiarity with an interface. You don't need to know exactly how it stores the buffer so it can stay responsive with large files, you don't need to know the rendering algorithms involved, etc. etc. Just the same, I don't think being able to use a compiler effectively depends on knowing how it does register allocation, or knowing if the parser is LALR or recursive descent. These are all implementation details. Good interfaces generally abstract over them, and present the user with what they need to use it. Version control being necessary doesn't change how people should approach learning it. At least, no more than we should expect good drivers to understand piston engines. (Though, drivers of manual transmission cars should probably understand clutches. Maybe Git is comparable to that?)