That's true. But they are working on this. Slowly.

Eg compare https://git-scm.com/docs/git-switch to git checkout.

https://www.infoq.com/news/2019/08/git-2-23-switch-restore/

I won't disagree with that, but idk. Once you understand the basic operations everything weird is a Google away.

I'll admit that Git is the only VCS I've spent any time with, so maybe I just don't know how much better it could be. But I've almost never had an issue with Git where I actually lost code. And anytime I'm doing something dangerous, I just make a backup copy of the directory in case I screw up irrevocably. But even if I'm doing something nasty, the reflog is there, and the cases where I've need to use my backup copy are very few and far between.

> almost never ... actually lost code

That seems like one of the absolute basics. "Almost" never...?

> I just make a backup copy of the directory in case I screw up irrevocably

If you really felt you could trust your source control system, that shouldn't be needed, and...

> the cases where I've need to use my backup copy

...should be nonexistent.

I agree. If losing code with Git is even a remote possibility, then you're "holding it wrong" indeed.

There are multiple ways to accidentally overwrite or delete a file that wasn't committed yet.

There are also situations where you need to use these commands and you're not ready to commit everything.

The safe way to handle this is generally making a stash commit and immediately applying it, but if you don't know that, or don't think to do that first, the result can be data loss.

Git is very careful about commits but if you never staged something then git can be ruthless.

I guess what I'm trying to express is that even in the rare case I'm doing something fancy with git making sure I don't lose anything is trivial.

I can think of exactly one time I actually lost code and I was doing ill advised reflog fuckery.

I take your point, but I stand by my opinion that in virtually all normal usage, git just isn't that hard. YMMV.

> Once you understand the basic operations everything weird is a Google away.

Yes that's true, but what you've probably forgotten is that understanding the basic operations is way way harder than it should be thanks to Git's terrible CLI, nomenclature and general UX.

I would also argue that the lack of an obviously good GUI makes it quite a lot harder for beginners, and the attitude that a lot of HN commenters have that you shouldn't use a GUI, despite Git being an obviously visual thing.

Btw any beginners reading this, I would recommend Git Extensions. Terrible name which led to me not trying it for ages, but it's actually one of the best. In particular it lets you browse the repo at every commit which is something that makes it way clearer what Git is doing.