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Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

gitbox.pierlis.com

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Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#21

Post by rfugger »

p3ll0n wrote: post #9
p3ll0n wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to learn git, open a terminal and read the man pages, create a dummy repository, push changes to it, pull from it, clone it, merge it, etc. Don't start with something like Gitbox because its hides all the details and more importantly the beauty and elegance of git.

Don't get me wrong Gitbox (and similar 'pretty wrappers') have their place just not as a learning tool. My rule of thumb for 'mission critical software' like version control systems - if you can't access its fully functionality at the shell when logged in to a remote machine then forget about it. Gitbox is great for your workflow until the day you have to actually use git and you have no time to 'actually' learn git.

Seems to me like the perfect time to learn git is when you need to use it.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#22

Post by viraptor »

p3ll0n wrote: post #7
harpastum wrote: post #5

I think it's very possible that these pretty wrappers allow people to hobble along with little to no understanding of how git actually works. If that's the only way that you'll use version control, it's better than nothing. On the other hand, I heartily endorse actually learning how the git model works -- it's not too bad, I promise! . Good places to start: [1] Peepcode's "Git Internals" PDF - $9 - short, sweet, to t…

If you want to learn git, open a terminal and read the man pages, create a dummy repository, push changes to it, pull from it, clone it, merge it, etc. Don't start with something like Gitbox because its hides all the details and more importantly the beauty and elegance of git.

I think that's the point of the project - to hide the details. I'm a developer of project X, but a user of git. I don't care about it - I want to see it as little as possible, because it's just another tool. Whether it's beautiful or not, I've got a work to do.

It's a bit like with the compiler: it can be pretty and all, but ultimately I just want to write `make` and get my binary. When I need the details, I know where to find them.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#23

Post by Maro »

jarin wrote: post #12

If you're a developer: Git is faster to work with and more powerful to use from the command line if you take maybe 20 minutes to go through a good tutorial. It took you much longer to learn how to program, and it's worth taking the time to get good at it. If you're a designer, writer, etc: Even though it only takes 20 minutes to learn, if a GUI is what it takes to get you to use version control I guess that is the le…

That's not true. You can't learn git in 20 minutes or 2 hours, unless you equate learning git to learning to type simple commands like 'git pull' and related. But then you're not really learning git, you're just typing generic VCS commands.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#24

Post by mickeyben »

aantix wrote: post #15
jarin wrote: post #12

If you're a developer: Git is faster to work with and more powerful to use from the command line if you take maybe 20 minutes to go through a good tutorial. It took you much longer to learn how to program, and it's worth taking the time to get good at it. If you're a designer, writer, etc: Even though it only takes 20 minutes to learn, if a GUI is what it takes to get you to use version control I guess that is the le…

I love the cheat gem. sudo gem install cheat Then do : cheat git A great shortcut to all of the common git command sequences.

sweet didn't know about it, it's very handy with my little Mac OS X alias to open preview from command line :

alias preview='groff -Tps > /tmp/tmp.ps && open -a Preview /tmp/tmp.ps'

So you can do :

cheat git | preview

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#25

Post by nailer »

harpastum wrote: post #5

I think it's very possible that these pretty wrappers allow people to hobble along with little to no understanding of how git actually works. If that's the only way that you'll use version control, it's better than nothing. On the other hand, I heartily endorse actually learning how the git model works -- it's not too bad, I promise! . Good places to start: [1] Peepcode's "Git Internals" PDF - $9 - short, sweet, to t…

So rather than a tool which shows a diagram of my project with all the branches I've made, you'd rather I read a book with a diagram of someone else's project with all the changes they made?

Interfaces are interfaces. CLIs are good for some things, but bad at discoverability and limited in their communication.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#26

Post by nailer »

melling wrote: post #3
kljensen wrote: post #2

God I wish I understood GIT. The screenshot here doesn't help me in any way. Tempted to stick with gitx. What is the advantage of this software?

Sign up for a github account. It's free and they have help. If you're on Windows, I've been told TortoiseGit is good. http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/

I like github too. It's very understandable - I find it better than the app shown here - and the help is great.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#27

Post by mechanical_fish »

bruceboughton wrote: post #13
piramida wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, git is not a consumer software. Developer should spend some time and learn 5 commands to be productive. But I find this interface interesting, even knowing all command line git this makes browsing history for reviews easy, nice tool.

The command line is very efficient for input of commands, far more so than GUIs (though keyboard shortcuts mitigate this). GUIs are far more efficient for output of infomation though, especially verbose info like history, log files, etc. It surprises me that die-hard CLIers often fail to recognise this.

And, in fact, my git setup has evolved to rely on magit (an emacs-based git GUI of sorts) for some operations, and the command line for others, and GitX for others.

In this case the best tool, even for experts, is a hybrid tool.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#28

Post by nailer »

piramida wrote: post #10
thethimble wrote: post #4

It seems to me that a lot of popular Unix-originated software seems to have really high learning curves (Vim comes to mind). I wish projects like git spent more efforts on things like GUIs. Does anybody know of any Linux alternatives?

Then again, git is not a consumer software. Developer should spend some time and learn 5 commands to be productive. But I find this interface interesting, even knowing all command line git this makes browsing history for reviews easy, nice tool.

>> a lot of popular Unix-originated software seems to have really high learning curves

>git is not a consumer software

I don't understand. What does being consumer software or not have to do with learning curves? Do you think developers don't appreciate simplicity or discoverability?

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#29

Post by kree10 »

jerome_etienne wrote: post #17

"Say, you move a file from one folder to another: in the Terminal you would have to “git rm” the old path (the file is gone, so no tab-completion) and “git add” the new path" -- from the homapage. well "git mv" is doing that just fine... It doesnt appear to serious on the homepage of a git product :) http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-mv.html

That aside, "git rm" (and "svn rm" and "cvs remove" for that matter) all tab-complete for me even when the "file is gone".

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#30

Post by fourneau »

p3ll0n wrote: post #7
harpastum wrote: post #5

I think it's very possible that these pretty wrappers allow people to hobble along with little to no understanding of how git actually works. If that's the only way that you'll use version control, it's better than nothing. On the other hand, I heartily endorse actually learning how the git model works -- it's not too bad, I promise! . Good places to start: [1] Peepcode's "Git Internals" PDF - $9 - short, sweet, to t…

If you want to learn git, open a terminal and read the man pages, create a dummy repository, push changes to it, pull from it, clone it, merge it, etc. Don't start with something like Gitbox because its hides all the details and more importantly the beauty and elegance of git.

Yes, the point of Gitbox is to hide the details but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I've had to teach plenty of people how to properly merge files using Git and no one has ever said "oh that makes sense". If a tool can hide the ugliness of merging conflicting files, even a little, it'll help a ton of people get used to using Git.

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