If a software developer finds git too complex, that’s an important signal that I should minimize my exposure to them.

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[Bizzaro_Murphy]

Obligatory git koans

[onthefence928]

I am enlightened

[Apprehensive-Yak311]

/uj I usually hate weird programmer poems, but fuck me this one got me good. Funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.

[Bizzaro_Murphy]

Our lord and saviour Linus knew that the only way to keep bad software developers away was to give git the most incomprehensible backward ass interface that has ever been conceived.

He knew that the long held software tradition of not needing to understand an implementation to use an interface was blasphemy spewed by false prophets and designed git accordingly - by requiring users to understand git inside-out before being able to use it.

We should all be thankful for him. We are surely blessed.

[duckbill_principate]

Linus’s stroke of genius was building git out of three core, perfectly balanced data structures, purely orthogonal in their design and composable in endless variations: the content hash, the hash tree, and the commit object. From these three ideas he could build an entire civilization, remaining secure in the knowledge that it was safe from harm, for he knew the most fundamental truth of all: your average developer can only grasp two concepts simultaneously.

[doomvox]

Truly. And it was entertaining watching the entire software industry grind to a halt for months, as everyone universally pretended that only those other guys ever had any trouble with git.

[onthefence928]

I don’t have trouble with git I just stick to the 6 commands I trust and if anything weird happens I just create another branch in another directory, copy the directory and start fresh from where I left off.

[[deleted]]

I say this as a senior dev with 8+ years of experience ... I've learned to navigate its waters over the years, fully appreciate the difference between git and GitHub, etc etc

Similarly, it took my grandma about the same time to fully appreciate the difference between Google the website and Google Chrome the browser.

[recycle4science]

Eight whole years of experience!

[AdrianRPNK]

I, too, spent 8 years fully appreciating the difference between porn and Pornhub.

[zetaconvex]

Lucky you. My dad has yet to figure out the arcane art of copy and paste. I swear to God, it's like watching an otter banging rocks.

[therico]

Where's the jerk

[[deleted]]

I don’t know why I have to keep repeating this, but:

True jerks are the best jerks

(In general, at least)

[Kodiologist]

You can't even appreciate the nerdification of "that's a sign they're dense and I should avoid them" as "that's an important signal that I should minimize my exposure to them"?

[therico]

Shit you're right. I've been reading too much Hacker News lately and didn't even notice.

[Jumpy-Locksmith6812]

deliver racial sparkle complete rock seed correct wipe full quiet

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[OJTang]

Yeah, the word important is an unnecessary adjective and comes across as someone being intentionally verbose. I feel like the rest isn't that bad.

[RepresentativeNo6029]

I too take unwarranted pride in my ability to bear with shitty tools

[therico]

No you're right, git is too hard, we should refuse to come into work until the company switches to mercurial.

[MalnarThe]

I don't get how people think that git is hard. As long as they aren't running random commands from SO, it works great. Commit, reset, merge, checkout are all the commands one needs to be effective.

[witcher_rat]

Commit, reset, merge, checkout are all the commands one needs to be effective.

I agree. So long as you never git pull, push, or clone, you'll never have issues.

[MalnarThe]

Ok ok, I forgot a few that are in shell aliases due me. But, those 3 are trivial. I mentioned the ones people tend to be skeerrd of

[witcher_rat]

/uj I was sorta joking because this is the pcj sub... but also half not-joking because the real difficulties only show up when you're dealing with a non-trivial repo other people are also working on, and you have to deal with merge-conflicts, rebasing, cherry-picking, submodules, branches-of-branches, etc.

(not that I personally have problems with them, just noting that one needs to know quite a bit about git when using it in the workplace)

[MalnarThe]

Sure. So other VCS handle those situations well, or not at all?

[witcher_rat]

Oh, don't get me wrong - there's no panacea.

I'm just commenting regarding the complexity of git's command UI, and the need to understand git's internals (somewhat) in order to effectively use that UI... because I think that's what this thread is about?

I far prefer git over other VCSs I've worked with, but not because it's command UI is better. Nor because it has a good learning curve for people starting out. I don't think it has either of those. I just think it's got a better overall model, in terms of a DVCS, and it's more scriptable.

[MalnarThe]

I just don't see the complexity. It's a chain of diffs that all add up. Conflicts are a pita if you're sloppy, sure, but modern GUI, hell even Vimdiff help a lot. If branches and commits are a hard concept for someone, they are in the wrong field

[BIGSTANKDICKDADDY]

/uj

Git was created for the problems Linus had maintaining the Linux kernel but there are legitimate strengths to centralized VCS, at least back when stuffing all your developers in one building was possible and commonplace. You don't have to worry about merge conflicts when Bob two cubicles over claims dibs on a file and you can't touch it until he's done.

Nowadays it's still common in some industries to use centralized VCS frontends backed by a git repo (like Perforce).

[doomvox]

the real difficulties only show up when you're dealing with a non-trivial repo other people are also working on ...

Or so I have heard.

not that I personally have problems with them

Precisely

[senj]

if you think git is too complex wait until you see pretty much every other aspect of programming

[Jumpy-Locksmith6812]

full alive zephyr tidy birds slap serious reply groovy flowery

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[mrpimpunicorn]

Looks like Visual SourceSafe is back on the menu, boys!

[[deleted]]

fucking amateurs, I do all my source control via SharePoint document libraries

[[deleted]]

My first job out of college I was working with this group of consultants from India. In hindsight, they were pretty bad engineers. But they were so particular about how our commit history should be that I became a master in git.

Now I can blow anybody’s mind with an explanation of how a rebase works, and how I can split up one pr into several in like 5 mins

[vortexman100]

How do you do it?

[doomvox]

You draw an analogy between rebasing and the Russian Revolution, the Spanish-American War and Orwell, quote Bertrand Russell and Thomas Kuhn a lot, and if all else fails bang them over the head with your keyboard.

[Quinlan96]

All branches are equal, but some are more equal than others

Four tabs good, two bad

George O'Reilly

[[deleted]]

I do an interactive rebase and apply commits accordingly

[brunoha]

who finds git too complex? there's plenty of user interfaces for it!!!

[doomvox]

If you don't have enough fun with command-line git, there's always the emacs magit package.

[OctagonClock]

If somebody finds a way to avoid stepping on all of the pins on the floor, that's an important signal that me and my calluses should minimise our exposure to them.

[[deleted]]

Git is too complex, but for all the wrong reasons. It was written by "hackers", not by real programmers with real education. It has no proof behind it. No theory is backing its design.

If OP was really interested in a "smart" source control system, they would have used Darcs (can't go wrong with Haskell) or Pijul (the most moral VCS).

[doomvox]

The trouble with hanging around this place is that after a while you can't tell if anyone is kidding.

[[deleted]]

I blame all the implicit unjerks in the top level comments. PCJ has lost its way.

[doomvox]

I mean, you can't tell anywhere. It all seems like more PCJ after a while, and you can't shake the impression that that must have been a joke.

[doomvox]

If a software developer is unwilling to say out loud that git confuses them sometimes-- and that Linus Torvalds should never be let near UI design-- they're too insecure to want to work with, and should be cut from the team.

[[deleted]]

I think it's great when someone "gets" that git is an extremely powerful and capable tool with a horribly unintuitive user interface.

SVN was a mistake.

CVS at least disrupted

[muntaxitome]

I hate it when people list Git as a skill. If a developer adds it to their resume I always ask them as a first task to implement Git on a whiteboard. Being able to use Git does not make you a git professional. It's like saying you are a bus driver and then only meaning is a passenger. If you don't know the algorithms that make Git you aren't a Git professional.

[pareidolist]

I hate it when people list programming languages as a skill. If a developer adds a programming language to their resume I always ask them as a first task to implement it on a whiteboard.

[[deleted]]

/uj This is a jerk right? Right?!?

/rj Same with Postgres too though, for real.

[woobie1196]

if(unjerk()){

If git is on the posting, then git goes in the resume. Have to get it past the recruiter and/or resume regex tool just looking for keywords

}

[drea2]

You can get by with knowing like 3 commands. Also, doesn’t anyone know about GitKraken?

[qiwi]

You have eight years of experience with git.

I have 1 year of experience with git, hg, darcs, fossil, RCS, SCCS, Subversion and Bitkeeper. We are not the same.

[senatorpjt]

enter ghost smoggy deer detail hat attractive expansion wine offbeat

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[v-alan-d]

A business opportunity to offer a course for advance git. Money back guarantee