Re:Ask HN: Can we do better than Git for version control?
by em-bee on Sunday December 10, 2023 @02:39PM
(#38594257)
i mostly agree that git can do almost anything (but see the limitations others bring up), however this claim is easy to disprove:
Whatever effort you are putting into seeking or building an alternative, instead put that effort towards becoming a Git expert.
building an alternative naturally is more work than to learn git for one person, but not everyone needs to do that. a few people building an alternative could save the learning effort of many more people.
instead i'd like to point out a different reason why rebuilding git may not solve the problem:
git is good because it is powerful and flexible.
that power and flexibility by necessity makes git more complex and difficult to use.
you can build a simpler system, but then half of todays git users won't be able to use it because it won't have the features they need.
and a system that has all the features of git today and also solves the problems it currently has will be even more complex and less straigt forward to use.
the best approach is probably to have a common backend that has all the power and flexibility needed, and multiple different frontends that are simplified to only expose the features needed for a particular workflow.
Whatever effort you are putting into seeking or building an alternative, instead put that effort towards becoming a Git expert.
building an alternative naturally is more work than to learn git for one person, but not everyone needs to do that. a few people building an alternative could save the learning effort of many more people.
instead i'd like to point out a different reason why rebuilding git may not solve the problem:
git is good because it is powerful and flexible.
that power and flexibility by necessity makes git more complex and difficult to use.
you can build a simpler system, but then half of todays git users won't be able to use it because it won't have the features they need.
and a system that has all the features of git today and also solves the problems it currently has will be even more complex and less straigt forward to use.
the best approach is probably to have a common backend that has all the power and flexibility needed, and multiple different frontends that are simplified to only expose the features needed for a particular workflow.