> Everyone should be able to sit down to a terminal, make a change to a repository, and commit it
Disagree - You're testing can someone use the basics of git in a terminal.
> you can always check the help or man page.
Assuming you know how to do that, and what you're looking at. Say I'm sat down in front of a terminal, and I'm told "here's a terminal, make a change and commit it"
I type in "git", and I get: "usage: git" - If you're used to using shell tools, then sure you can make sense of it, If you're not, then you're done.
You said "commit" and the description for that in the "git" command is:
> grow, mark and tweak your common history
> commit Record changes to the repository
Right, I don't know what that means, but lets try this `git commit`
> fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
Ok, No idea here. I somehow figure out that git init will give me a .git folder. Now that I've got that out of the way, I try git commit , I get:
> nothing added to commit but untracked files present
Ok, how do I track files? "git help" doesn't mention tracking files. I'll try "git commit hello.txt", which gives me:
> error: pathspec 'Hello.txt' did not match any file(s) known to git
I give up at this point really.
(by the way, I got this far by doing this walkthrough this morning, and googling "how to use git" - which told me the answer in 3 seconds).
Not knowhing how to use a terminal vcs, or knowing the commands to perform even the basics doesn't mean you can't use version control, it just means you can't use a terminal for git. Is my 9 years of C++ and perforce experience because I didn't know that commit was analogous to submit, or because I've used a graphical interface for all that time?