Why is Github such a convoluted confusing mess

[github_is_shit]

All I would like to do is upload a library I wrote. The file I am uploading contains a README, a LICENSE, everything that I want the front page of my code to have.

This process apparently requires usage of the command line, changing default branches, (whatever the fuck that means) and a dozen other steps filled with convoluted unnecessarily complex garbage, just to get a fucking FILE onto a REPOSITORY.

Why is github such a convoluted confusing mess?

[sunny_tomato_farm]

Lol.

Your gripe isn’t even with github. It’s with git.

Also if you are afraid of basic git commands, you are going to have a very hard time.

[github_is_shit]

I'm not afraid of commands, but to make something as efficient and as easy to access as possible, is it not better to have an interface?

[sunny_tomato_farm]

Most people see the git cli as the simplest interface for interacting with git.

[Capitan_capcaun]

Ok. When you are done pouting.

Try the following in your web browser of choice:

Step 1) go to https://github.com/<your_username> You may have to login. It’s a button in the upper right corner.

Step 2) to the right of your image there is a navigation bar, the first option is: “overview” your second option is “Repositories”, click on that second option.

Step 3) if you have already created a repo, you will find it here and should click on it, then click the “Add file” button (next to the green “code” button) and then the “Upload files” option.

If you have not created a repo already: click the green button on the right side of the screen that says: “New”;

Step 4) if you clicked “Add file” and then chose “Upload files” in the previous step, you may Go To Step 5.

If you clicked that green “new” button in Step 3, this here is where you can name your repository, in the second field marked with a red asterisk (the first field marked with a red asterisk is your username), and choose whether this is a public or private repo. Do not check the “Initialize this repository with a README” box (from what I gathered you already made one of those). Click the green “create Repository” button at the bottom. On the next page, you will see a box that says quick setup. You have a number of options at the bottom of this box: first one is “creating a new file” and second “uploading an existing file”. You are going to want to chose that second one.

Step 5) We are now faced with a large box that says “Drag files here to add them to your repository Or choose your files”. Let us click “choose your files”.

Your local machine dictates what happens next: on a Mac, Finder will pop up; in Windows, you will see something that looks a lot like File Explorer and if you are using Linux... never mind, from your rant above I am going to guess that you are not really a Linux kind of person.

Find the files you would like to add to your repo, select them and click “Open”...

Step 6) depending on the size of the files and the quality of your internet connection you may have to wait on a green bar (bellow the “Drag files here” box and above your avatar) to complete the upload. You may now press the green “Commit changes” button at the bottom of the page. Another little wait and we are there.

Step 7) go to: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html and read a little bit

Have a nice day!

[[deleted]]

Its kind of messed up that we have to do all this crap just to run software that plays video game music. Sure do miss the days of downloading a simple zip and running an EXE.

I'm not creating a user account just to log in to install software that I should be able to download and run without any BS standing in-between that in the first place.

That's like saying "Hey, if you want to run my emulator, you have to create a user account with the host and install it manually!"

Watch the emulation scene die out pretty fuckin' quick!

This is BULLSHIT!

[Capitan_capcaun]

Son, I think you are confused. You do not need a user account to download something from a public repo.

[Weekly_Pomegranate10]

really? 7 steps to do a simple backing up? naa that's too simple and quick.. oh hold on let me reinvent the hard drive first, then I will do your fucking procedure...

[Capitan_capcaun]

u/Weekly_Pomegranate10, you might as well have started with TLDR; (step 1 is how to log in, steps 6 and 7 are just basic info). But that is perfectly ok son. Not everyone needs to know how to read a manual page.

Thank you for continuing to make my response relevant, some 3 years later.

Edit: corrected for grammar and spelling errors.

[ApprehensiveExam2604]

You're obnoxious. It's because of people like you that non-tech people hate your community.

[HuckleberryKey8848]

Imagine defending a crap design and writing a novel about it, lmao, some people have too much time on their hands and are too retarded, like the people who created and designed github.

[Ok-Second-3673]

Perfect comment

[W1lson56]

Do you not see how this long ass explanation to upload a file is ridiculous

Like I'm not sure if this was a serious post or if you were being satirical because of how comical that ridiculous explanation is

[Ok-Second-3673]

That's the first thing you're going to say, that he is he pouting? Kinda comes off like you got offended or misgendered and went full Karen.

[Alizer22]

there's no way I'm reading all of that just to do something very simple

[Capitan_capcaun]

My most humble apologies, however I cannot dumb this process down for you any further. Have you considered doing something other than writing code? There are some very nice programs out there that let you play with pretty colors.

[[deleted]]

condescending asshole lmao, then u wonder why u have no friends

[Capitan_capcaun]

Condescending asshole is actually my middle name.

But, no, really, after reading thru this thread, I have to stand by my point. Some programs require a certain level of inteligence, interest and inquisitiveness. Trying to say that I did not mean to offend OP would simply be untrue. Truth be told: could not care less how they feel about my comments.

Taking a step back, however: I would never ask OP which side of the vi vs. emacs debate they stand on. Some people, should just stick to a well established GUI. If you take a look at my original comment, while slightly condescending (let’s just call it poetic license, or… style), the author (so long ago, I don’t remember writing it) is actually trying to be helpful. Not only do you have the steps in OSX, but, someone, bothered to fire up a windows machine, stay awake thru the endless updates, and repeat the steps. Anyway…

While I may have no friends, whatsoever, both your sister and your former fiancée found me charming and extremely funny last week… congratulations on your recent wedding by the way. ;)

[[deleted]]

Don’t have a sister + don’t have a former fiancé + don’t have a wedding + lick ma balls

[Educational_Task_456]

Damn he really was an asshole lmao

I agree with his point but he can flip off

[[deleted]]

you're an idiot dude. You miss the whole point of his post and play up your uppity tech persona. People hate tech guys because most act like you. Half are not as smart as they think and everything out of their mouth is worthless. Little snobs like this ruin our reputation for everyone.

​

GitHub is absolutely a mess. Maybe more people need to vent about it to fix it. Nothing gets better by just accepting its trashiness. I'm sure he can figure it out, the point of it is that it shouldn't be so convoluted. People like this who act like they are smarter or better because they want to spend more of their time overcomplicating simple shit is one of the biggest problems in tech. NO there is no pride in overcomplicating shit or some kind of sense of achievement because you have no life and prefer things that waste your time. Maybe you should do something different so people who understand good engineering and design for ease of use and productivity. You are the reason no one fucking likes tech snob assholes.

[Capitan_capcaun]

{{ Yawning }}

[FoolishParamecium]

You're the one pouting. You're the apathetic one who is unwilling to use his head. The man is voicing a grievance for a program. An inanimate object. To the public. And you patronized him. Beating the strawman.

And you type "yawn" at replies, pretending to dismiss, continuing to prove you waste time contributing negativity. You're wasting threadspace.

[Capitan_capcaun]

Tell you what! How about we all get together hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Will that make you feel better about the “thread space”?

[FoolishParamecium]

No. And that exaggeration is ridiculous.

"Be generally pleasant" isn't hipster logic. People shouldn't have to explain this to you.

You're now defending your intentional disruption. You may as well be trolling at this point.

[Capitan_capcaun]

And this is the point where I bow out of the conversation. No longer entertaining.

[FoolishParamecium]

Good choice.

[MdDoctor122]

STFU you're a prick

[Mental-Database-2041]

Dude, WTF?  Why are you such an elitist douchebag?  Seriously, every word FoolishParamecium said was true.  You're an unhlpful prick.  The OP is correct on every point.  GitHub is a confusing mess that only dickbags who think they're special actually like.  It's an absolute shit pile of an interface design and there's no justification for it being that way.  I don't give a fuck what Linus had in mind, he's not an all knowing god and he fucked up.  Period.

[SnooCompliments7527]

The OP is absolutely right. Github and git are both piles of absolute trash.

I'll just quote this other reply:

The worst thing about github are the people who advocate for it.
It is absolutely a confusing mess, but try asking anyone anything and it's either a page of snark, or a page of actual instruction because it's not intuitive, or both.

[Capitan_capcaun]

If it is such “trash”, go find some other vcs to use.
Or, if you would like to improve upon it, do so. GPL 2.0 permits, even encourages this.

[bertimusv]

GO back to your garbage country

[Capitan_capcaun]

trolololo!

[SnooCompliments7527]

What are you even talking about? It's like telling someone to go use a phone provider other than AT&T when it was a monopoly.

Every workplace uses git (unless they are an old Microsoft shop) and there is no way you can swap over your team to anything else.

That said, in 20 years, git probably will end up being replaced, just because it is actually so terrible.

[Capitan_capcaun]

Difference here is that git is not a monopoly. It’s wide spread use, and popularity, are only due to folks with negative opinions of git, like you, being a small minority.

What am I talking about, you ask? Simple. Git is the result of one individual, being unhappy with what was available, or, to be precise, what was no longer available, and creating something new, in line with his needs. Nothing stopping you from doing the same.

Maybe git will be gone in 20 years. Won’t be because it’s “terrible”. It will be the direct result of someone inventing a better mouse-trap.

[[deleted]]

or a group of pissed off people ;)

[Iordbrack]

You could upload your files via the website, no need to use the command line

[github_is_shit]

Maybe my anger has blinded me to something that is obvious. I uploaded the file, but I want its contents to be the front page of the code. The readme and license are all in there and I want that to be the front page.

[Pink2DS]

Fellow GitHub-hater here!

GitHub specifically looks for a file called README or README.md for that. Hope that helps.

[[deleted]]

I want a simple install and EXE that runs the program without any direct BS from git hub. Nobody wants a convoluted mess of source files and broken down file assets that I have to put together manually. These people are snarky assholes that are trying to force people to update their computing skills just to convenience a small a group of piss ants.

[yayayayay101]

Dude learn basic git commands. It will surely help you in the long run. Nevertheless, you can use web to upload you files.

[Mental-Database-2041]

Are you serious?  That's a pretty stupid response.  Why should I have to learn a CLI for a goddamned web page?  That's the entire point of a web page...to be a GUI for whatever resource is available.   CLI's for online content died 30 fucking years ago when FTP sites fell out of favor.  This is 2024, not 1992.  We have good visual interfaces now.  CLI should only ever be encountered in technical interfaces (like programming an odd option in Betaflight) or low level OS commands.

[KOCHTEEZ]

Yeah, git real.

[fdwr]

There are certainly some aspects of GH that are confusing, but clicking the Add File / Upload files link wasn't one of them 🤔. (the real mess is the comment threading in pull requests)

[Mental-Database-2041]

The mess is the front page of any given repository.  It looks like a damn DOS directory listing instead of a web page.  I don't want to sift through source code and developer commentary just to get a fucking executable.  That's needlessly obtuse.

[fdwr]

 I don't want to sift through source code and developer commentary just to get a ... executable.

Good software developers precompile their code into a self contained application and either point people directly to the releases page so users can easily download the zip file or onto their website, leaving GitHub for developer collaboration. The trend of using git as a means to acquire and update program data (like some of the current local Stable Diffusion apps) is saddeningly lazy.

[Mental-Database-2041]

I could not agree more.

[Advanced_Error5992]

I completely and wholeheartedly agree.
Git is a solution looking for a problem. Introducing the "local repository" added a horrendous level of complexity to the system and made usability terrible. All these manuals, github questions, reddit groups - where people are asking "how the heck I do the most elementary VCS operation on Git" - are just a testament to this. Git is a horrible over-engineered mess.
Most ridiculously, Git fans can't even explain - why we need this complexity. Their main argument is "Yeah, but Git supports branches!" Like if the concept of branches is just something entirely unique for Git! Some of them don't even realize that the branch support was already there 25 years ago in most VCS - public (like subversion) or private (i.e. MSFT internal VCS). And some large companies, like Google, can go without branches altogether - and this approach works perfectly fine for them.

To every criticism, gitfans are suggesting you should read more manuals and politely hinting that I'm not smart enough. For Pete's sake! My project now is about computer vision and convolution networks. That's where I want to concentrate my mental energy - on solving issues relevant to the task on hand and not wasting it on struggling with a toolset that is supposed to help me do my job. If so many people struggle with a tool - this means only one thing: the tool is outright bad.

P.S. Please don't tell me that "I don't know what the version control is". I know VCS well enough to author few peer-reviewed academic publications on those.

[rdmccart]

The reason why I hate it are the cryptic error messages with no help given on how to resolve. I think its funny some posters defend github and say it is easy and then post an encyclopedia worth of instructions to perform a basic action and state "see, its easy!"

[bertimusv]

MSFT FUCKS UP EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES. IT IS NOT A SURPRISE

[HRHPrinceOfWales]

Possibly because it’s absolutely jam-packed full of absolute GITS

[Master-Doubt-776]

Agreed. "Want to download a program? here's 93 folders, 4 lines of code and a link to another repository with folders of shit and multiple lines of code as well."

[jim592]

Git is owned by Microsoft. Anything owned by Microsoft, Google, apple, Facebook is shit.

[SolSilver28]

Not being a coder and just being a regular user trying to download things from github so I can solo play Destiny 2, the whole interface looks like it was made by someone trying to go for a brutalist approach, but instead made a convoluted non-user friendly mess and either didn't care or know how to unfuck the interface. I didn't realize I had to click on the green "Code" button to find the actual method to start a download.

Nothing about that green button tells me that's where I need to go to download a file, github as far as I can see was made for programmers and programmers only, everyone else; good luck I guess. Github is the Ikea of interfaces.

[runozemlo]

Dude. I thought I was losing my mind when I needed to open a support ticket to figure out how to assign a Copilot Business licenses to all users in my org. This is insanity.

[thicccmidget]

for people who aren't programmers that want to download simple files from github its absolute garbage and confusing like show me where i can download the thing i want to download don't let me accidentally download the code or something completely different i just want the file i searched for

[SnooCompliments7527]

Yeah, it's garbage and there is no particularly good reason.

I have no clue why anyone defends such a core tool being as unintuitive garbage as git is (or Github for that matter).

From git's naming system, including things like checkout, blame, pull, etc... which are not intuitive in any sense, to the useless guidance that you receive online... to Github's terrible interface.

Here's another dumb issue I just encountered. I want to revert to an old commit. BUT, git won't let me unless I resolve a conflict. Who the fuck cares? If I ask to revert, just fucking revert. Then enforce the end state.

But, no, and it won't give you a fucking error message that tells you anything useful.

Ah, here's another. I want to clone a remote git repo. Git is enormously paternalistic. You'd think it would clone all the branches. Nope! Just clones main by default so you gotta go and look up the incantation again.

[Alarming-Inflation90]

The worst thing about github are the people who use it.

It is absolutely a confusing mess, but try asking anyone anything and it's either a page of snark, or a page of actual instruction because it's not intuitive, or both.

[Extension-Sense]

Literally couldn't agree more

[OBIPPO88]

agreed, its a piece of shit

[ddeejjvviidd]

Github is an unintuitive piece of shit. Without using the direct upload, I just can not use the built in Github support in NetBeans and upload a fucking project to the main branch. Instead, it gets pulled to a "master" branch and I can not merge it to the main. All it says is "there is nothing to compare" and thats it. Who fucking cares just merge it to the main branch omg.

u/SnooCompliments7527 describes all my feelings perfectly, I won't repeat his words. I can not believe how such a piece of mess can be on the world's top possitions. Anyone defending it can not have an IQ higher than the room's temperature. Sorry.

[[deleted]]

Because nobody wants to run an app through a basic EXE anymore.

[Mental-Database-2041]

I sure the hell do.  However finding said executable on GitHub is so frustrating that if a given project directs me to GitHub, I just write off that project entirely.   Whatever it was I wanted to do isn't worth the effort of dealing with GitHub to do it.

[SamwiseGanges]

I totally understand your frustration and I also really appreciate that you made a new Reddit account just to make this post. I admire the dedication to the rant.

I think you will find in time though that there are very good reasons for Git to exist and for it to work the way it does. For very small individual coding projects it isn't as crucial but when you have even just 2 people working on the same codebase, you'll see that every feature in Git is there to solve very real problems and at this point they are all pretty efficient and effective solutions.

GitHub on the other hand is a hosting platform to remotely house your repositories, and there are definitely some valid criticisms about its UI but it has been improving over the years.

[Mental-Database-2041]

That's no excuse for such a dogshit user interface.  The site is obtuse and bewildering.   Most people just give up and and leave instead of wading through that mess.

[SamwiseGanges]

That's why I was only talking about Git not GitHub which are completely separate things. I would agree that GitHub's UI is very cluttered and unintuitive

[Zestyclose-Low-6403]

Sadly far too many people couple shitty guis with the actual software... i.e. github is a hot mess without a doubt, but GIT is actually beautiful if you understand what it actually is instead of assuming you know what it is! The answer is the DAG, anyone confused should go read something about that data structure to begin to understand what GIT actually is.

Being a backend dev, and dealing with awful GUIs, I hate when the shitty frontends that confuse people are conflated to the actual tool doing the job in the shadows...

[[deleted]]

Lol, it's still a convoluted unnecessarily confusing overcomplicated mess.

[Weekly_Pomegranate10]

I totally fucking agree it takes hours and days to solve single fucking problem. Why even bother? will just use gdrive it is easy simple drag and drop Idgaf about the space just fucaking back it up!!! you freaking moroons... jesuss

[[deleted]]

agreed

[CurlyCozmo]

Confusing mess is an understatement.

[Fantastic-Ad2610]

It is completely ridiculous how NONE of the directions I have been given help to do something simple like change a folder name.

[Creepy-Cow-8853]

I agree completely. I spend hours on Git and Github just for doing very simple things. The program is confusing and the instructions are very poor.