Git != github.

(Does this really need to be said?)

Saddly it does. There is probably a significant number of developers who never used git without Github.

As a funny aside, when Github breaks the thing to say is "I wish one day someone would invent a decentralized version control system" ;-)

For many developers the only reason we use git is github. I for one much prefer mercurial but to collaborate with others (and now for my job) github is a de facto standard.

Well, it depends on what documentation you mean. The alternative is using standard git commands that are in the git documentation, which is exactly what OP's alternative presumably involves?

(But I am entirely sympathetic to the opinion that git itself exposes too much plumbing and has a pretty baroque end-user interface for doing certain things. And it's also certainly legit to wish or suggest that _github_'s UI worked differently than it does, although the merge commits don't really bother me, and some people prefer them, it's a point of some contention).

I see you've been downvoted and I think unfairly. I agree with you though.

Looking back at arguments people make about how to "do it properly", it looks like something is broken. Git is broken, maybe Github is broken, documentation, UI, marketing. Something is though. When an obvious UI element is there, seemingly designed to do merges, and then everyone says "no, no, do this other thing", like send emails, then rebase here on top of that, make a ref pattern in your ~/.gitconfig ...

But really... stop using the merge button.