News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Gitless: a version control system by zajd on Sunday October 02, 2016 @10:00AM (#12622353)
It's really not though. And posting articles that pretend like "git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD" is the best way to view what branch you're working on just makes you look dumber than you do for acting like git is difficult to work with. If people writing blog posts about "how bad the git interface is" and more time instructing newer programmers (the only ones who have any reason to complain about git) on how to correctly use the tools maybe we wouldn't have to hear so much whining about the tool.

Anyone who has been in the field understands that for all it's tradeoffs git is an incredible breath of fresh air from systems like CVS/SVN.

Re:Gitless: a version control system by Certhas on Sunday October 02, 2016 @12:56PM (#12623201)
"It's really not though."

That's not an argument. Especially vis a vis the detailed reasoning behind gitless. In my view gitless has a superior experience without losing any power.

Also no one is comparing git to CVS/SVN. It can stand miles above these and still have severe usability flaws.

And I don't work with programmers.

Re:Gitless: a version control system by zajd on Sunday October 02, 2016 @01:34PM (#12623369)
It's not an argument because that Koans article is horrible satire that people are trying to pass off as a legitimate argument. I detailed in my post one direct example as to why that post shouldn't be taken seriously.

Now, if you have some legitimate gripes about git's usability I'd love to respond to them and have a real discussion, but Gitless doesn't make those arguments, it's just a wrapper around git (which could all be done with aliases) that adds an additional layer of abstraction for no benefit (or at least none that they've felt confident mentioning)

Re:Gitless: a version control system by Certhas on Sunday October 02, 2016 @06:09PM (#12624532)
It wasn't entirely obvious what you were responding to in my post exactly. That article is satire, but if you don't even want to accept that maybe the git commands are badly named (and besides your one bad example, there are plenty of real examples in the satire) I don't see much point in having a discussion.

It being "just a wrapper around git" is an excellent argument that the user interface and usability are problematic. Nobody is arguing with the mathematical model underlying git. Gitless manages to expose a lot less state by default. That's a usability win. It's still there when you need it. There is no expressiveness lost. I find the examples they give on their website very persuasive:

http://gitless.com/#vs

If you want the detailed analysis of weaknesses of git that led to the design of gitless, it's here:

https://people.csail.mit.edu/sperezde/onward13.pdf

I don't necessarily agree with everything in there but I think it's an excellent analysis overall and worth reading as a case study anyways.

Re:Gitless: a version control system by zajd on Sunday October 02, 2016 @07:17PM (#12624771)
Thank you so much for posting that pdf, that really should be posted somewhere on that site because without the context just throwing out "it's git without a staging area" seems like a pretty poor argument. After reading the whitepaper I would still say that I'm not sure there's much value in the project, that being said they did manage to simplify the "mental model"... although honestly not by much. I'm not sure the cost is worth the benefit here.
Re:Gitless: a version control system by Certhas on Monday October 03, 2016 @05:19AM (#12626159)
No problem, BTW, in my mind it's getting rid of the (need to) stash and improved management of untracked files that are the major simplifications, not staging.

In my workflow I also see no cost, but I am happy to accept that that's because we don't have very sophisticated needs.

Re:Gitless: a version control system by dhimes on Sunday October 02, 2016 @10:31AM (#12622480)
Is there a gentle introduction, comparable to hginit.com for mercurial? When I first started version control I was trying to choose between hg and git. The site hginit was huge for getting me to swing towards hg.
Re:Gitless: a version control system by zajd on Sunday October 02, 2016 @10:38AM (#12622521)
https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/

This is generally where I point people who have a technical background

Re:Gitless: a version control system by rplst8 on Sunday October 02, 2016 @11:19AM (#12622737)
Atlassian has put some great "mind abstractions" on top of git to help people understand how to use it.

It's definitely fashionable these days to hate on complicated tools. I wonder if the same is true in other professions. Simple tools are easy to use, yes. But anyone who as worked on a Bicycle or other equipment that requires specialized tools knows that the having the correct, often more complicated tool beats the hell out of wacking on it with the wrong type of wrench.

Re:Gitless: a version control system by rkangel on Monday October 03, 2016 @05:15AM (#12626146)
Software allows a better abstraction of a problem than anything in the mechanical world. Progression in software craftsmanship has shown us that powerful functionality can be hidden behind a simple interface, if sufficient thought and design is put into it.

Our expectations of how we interact with software have risen over the years, and that's a good thing.

Re:Gitless: a version control system by dhimes on Sunday October 02, 2016 @12:18PM (#12623002)
Right tool definitely wins. Mecurial is excellent, though; it solves all of my problems. But I feel like I should at least know some git basics. And I want to start at the simple beginning just in case I have some misunderstandings about what I'm doing in hg.
Re:Gitless: a version control system by dhimes on Sunday October 02, 2016 @11:09AM (#12622690)
Thank you.