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Write yourself a Git (2018)

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Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#51

Post by huffstler »

cabalamat wrote: post #32
cmroanirgo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm like you. I use SourceTree to get a 'visual grasp' on what I find to be the noise of git commands. However, if you're into command line, you can try fossil: it's got lots going for it. Your idea of a "user's mental model" might land you into trouble though, because all of us come from different backgrounds (subversion, SSafe, git, HG...) and they all maddeningly redefine terms in different ways (eg branch, forks,…

> Your idea of a "user's mental model" might land you into trouble though If I do do this, I will explicitly lay out the user's metal model in the documentation at the start. Then it will be the user's fault if they can't be bothered to read it.

While gits documentation might not lay out the model at the start, they certainly have documentation showing how everything works, complete with diagrams and such. As such...

> Then it will be the user's fault if they can't be bothered to read it.

can be applied to you about git technically. I think that's just me being a "little" pedantic though.

It sounds like the issue you actually have is that the documentation isn't easily readable in one or two sittings, and you don't have the time (or can't be bothered) to go through it and learn it. Which I totally understand, everyone has different things they need to spend time on, most of the time learning Git isn't one of them.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#52

Post by totallymike »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #31
cabalamat wrote: post #29

I have an admission to make: I don't understand git. By this I mean I have a few simple commands I use (status/add/commit/push/pull) and if I try to do anything more complicated it always ends up with lots of complex error messages that I don't understand and me nuking the repository and starting again. So I think: there must be a better way. I have often thought about implementing a VCS. The idea behind one doesn't…

Yeah, I too don't really understand git. It seems that it was developed without any concern for affording a good mental model of its operation to its users, and thus it is just a complex black box you chant arcane rituals at and hope it doesn't decide to burn your world down. I know I could build a mental model of it if I put enough time into it, but who wants to do that when there's actually useful things to do? So…

This is a valid point. Git is sometimes incomprehensible. The best way to build a mental model for me has been to read about directed acyclic graphs. It’s all just trees, objects, and labels for trees and objects from there.

Also to learn that `git reflog` exists, and gives you pointers to all the old states of your repo, even mid-merge or mid-rebase. If you get stuck with a bad rebase, you’re only a `git reflog; git checkout HEAD@{3}` away from being back where you started.

Tutorials like this one and others mentioned throughout the thread do a good job of breaking down the viscera from there.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#53

Post by linkmotif »

sransara wrote: post #42

Thanks for sharing. I too agree on this: "... Git is complex is, in my opinion, a misconception... But maybe what makes Git the most confusing is the extreme simplicity and power of its core model. The combination of core simplicity and powerful applications often makes thing really hard to grasp..." If I may do a self plug, I had recently written a note on "Build yourself a DVCS (just like Git)"[0]. The note is an e…

What makes it hard is that it’s taught wrong. All this pull/checkout/commit/push whereas for me it took a long time to discover that fetch/rebase/show-branch/reset/checkout —amend, and especially the interactive -p variants, are the core tools that really make it a pleasure to use. They give you flexibility and let you write and rewrite your story, whereas the commands you’re introduced with provide no control to the user. It’s remarkable the number of users who think you can’t rewrite a Git branch.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#54

Post by influx »

cabalamat wrote: post #34
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I too don't really understand git. It seems that it was developed without any concern for affording a good mental model of its operation to its users, and thus it is just a complex black box you chant arcane rituals at and hope it doesn't decide to burn your world down. I know I could build a mental model of it if I put enough time into it, but who wants to do that when there's actually useful things to do? So…

> It seems that it was developed without any concern for affording a good mental model of its operation to its users I think Linus' design goal was something that runs as quickly/efficiently as possible on large repositories. > it is just a complex black box you chant arcane rituals at and hope it doesn't decide to burn your world down My feeling too!

No, his design goal was to create a vcs for the Linux kernel. Frankly most people use git like svn version 2, completely skipping the distributed parts of it.

Git actually doesn’t scale to really huge monorepos.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#55

Post by jordigh »

sransara wrote: post #42

Thanks for sharing. I too agree on this: "... Git is complex is, in my opinion, a misconception... But maybe what makes Git the most confusing is the extreme simplicity and power of its core model. The combination of core simplicity and powerful applications often makes thing really hard to grasp..." If I may do a self plug, I had recently written a note on "Build yourself a DVCS (just like Git)"[0]. The note is an e…

While this is nice, I think it should be emphasised that the blob-tree-commit-ref data structure of git is not essential to a DVCS. One of the disadvantages of everything being git is that everyone can only think in terms of git. This makes things like Pijul's patch system, Mercurial's revlogs, or Fossil's sqlite-based data structures more obscure than they should be. People not knowing about them and considering their relative merits has resulted in a bit of a stagnation in the VCS domain.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#57

Post by justbaker »

oweiler wrote: post #27
ssivark wrote: post #9

I have nothing to directly comment on the tutorial. Just a tangential mention regarding the tedious argument parsing boilerplate in Python, I have found Python Fire to be much more convenient: https://github.com/google/python-fire It would have shaved off another 15-20 lines from the 503 line example ;-)

For Java (or any other JVM language), nothing beats https://picocli.info/ . Works well with GraalVM, too.

Nice! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#58

Post by ectospheno »

linkmotif wrote: post #53
sransara wrote: post #42

Thanks for sharing. I too agree on this: "... Git is complex is, in my opinion, a misconception... But maybe what makes Git the most confusing is the extreme simplicity and power of its core model. The combination of core simplicity and powerful applications often makes thing really hard to grasp..." If I may do a self plug, I had recently written a note on "Build yourself a DVCS (just like Git)"[0]. The note is an e…

What makes it hard is that it’s taught wrong. All this pull/checkout/commit/push whereas for me it took a long time to discover that fetch/rebase/show-branch/reset/checkout —amend, and especially the interactive -p variants, are the core tools that really make it a pleasure to use. They give you flexibility and let you write and rewrite your story, whereas the commands you’re introduced with provide no control to the…

The rebase command is only safe if you never share a branch. Most people use a distributed revision control system to work with others and if you do work with others then rebase is dangerous and should not be used.

Almost every rebase user I've spoken with has no idea what the danger is despite it being clearly discussed in the manual page for rebase and despite rebase being listed as dangerous every time it is mentioned in any manual page.

For the sake of new users everywhere, please stop recommending rebase.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#59

Post by JustSomeNobody »

seleniumBubbles wrote: post #6

This is great, thanks for sharing. People in this thread might also appreciate this essay: https://maryrosecook.com/blog/post/git-in-six-hundred-words And the more expanded version: https://maryrosecook.com/blog/post/git-from-the-inside-out It really helped me comprehend Git enough to start understanding the more complex work flows.

I really enjoy the way MRC explains topics. I, too, would recommend her essay.

Re: Write yourself a Git (2018)

#60

Post by hvis »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #31
cabalamat wrote: post #29

I have an admission to make: I don't understand git. By this I mean I have a few simple commands I use (status/add/commit/push/pull) and if I try to do anything more complicated it always ends up with lots of complex error messages that I don't understand and me nuking the repository and starting again. So I think: there must be a better way. I have often thought about implementing a VCS. The idea behind one doesn't…

Yeah, I too don't really understand git. It seems that it was developed without any concern for affording a good mental model of its operation to its users, and thus it is just a complex black box you chant arcane rituals at and hope it doesn't decide to burn your world down. I know I could build a mental model of it if I put enough time into it, but who wants to do that when there's actually useful things to do? So…

> black box

Have you tried looking into any other contemporary DVC systems?

I get Git, more or less. Having tried to make sense of Bazaar or Mercurial on several occasions (to understand the internal data model), I eventually gave up.

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