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Git undo: We can do better

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Re: Git undo: We can do better

#31

Post by simias »

zach_garwood wrote: post #19

This seems like putting a training wheel on a training wheel. git is already the easiest to understand of any VCS that I've used, and it's somewhat hard to do something in git that can't be reversed. As the articles states, it's unlikely you'll ever lose your changes. Further, this doesn't seem to be that different of a concept from git reset, so why not learn reset instead of yet another command?

Hard disagree, git's docs and UI have improved over the years but every time I have to teach it to a beginner I realize how arcane and scary it is, especially when compared to old school centralized VCSs like subversion.

Not that I'd trade git for subversion mind you, in the hands of a trained individual git is a godsend, but the training part can be arduous.

Even among DVCSs I'd argue that mercurial for instance is vastly easier to pick up.

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#32

Post by handrous »

eric4smith wrote: post #12

Damn, this is such a GREAT idea. I've messed up repos a few times, and it's never good. It's always -- "what's the magic want I have to wave now"? The truth is, while we use git every day, most people really don't understand how it works. There I said it. And I'm not ashamed. I don't really know how Git works. And I think I'm not the only one. What does "git reflog" or "git reset --hard ...." do? What are the implica…

I know (or, at least, have known) how git works, in the way most people mean that (the data structures & on-disk layout, what a commit is, what a tag is, what a branch is, what HEAD is, staging, et c.). What I can't keep straight is WTF the commands are actually doing, in that low-level sense, which is a different thing, and there's approximately a 0% chance I'm ever going to use more than a tiny fraction of the commands often enough to remember that information.

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#33

Post by arxanas »

zach_garwood wrote: post #19

This seems like putting a training wheel on a training wheel. git is already the easiest to understand of any VCS that I've used, and it's somewhat hard to do something in git that can't be reversed. As the articles states, it's unlikely you'll ever lose your changes. Further, this doesn't seem to be that different of a concept from git reset, so why not learn reset instead of yet another command?

Git reset doesn't e.g. reset the positions of multiple branches to their historical positions. In fact, some of that data can be lost forever to Git (branch deletions are not tracked anywhere).

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#34

Post by happytoexplain »

max_hammer wrote: post #6

How hard is `git reflog` `git reset --hard ` Or if you just want to move back 1 commit `git reset HEAD@{1}`

The complexity of executing a solution is irrelevant to the complexity of determining a solution. Regardless, you're being dismissive, and that attitude contributes to the unwillingness of people to ask questions, and therefore hinders learning on a large scale.

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#35

Post by arxanas »

girishso wrote: post #3

This seems like a very good idea. Only if we can scroll through the commit hashes and see the preview of commit with help of fzf or something similar, it will be totally awesome.

I would like to add fzf-style interfaces to checking out more things. Hopefully, they could index both the commit message and the commit contents when searching.

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#36

Post by zhynn »

max_hammer wrote: post #7
girishso wrote: post #3

This seems like a very good idea. Only if we can scroll through the commit hashes and see the preview of commit with help of fzf or something similar, it will be totally awesome.

I use maggit and can scroll commit log using `ll` You can also try `lazygit` it's a TUI written in Go

I have been using lazygit for about six months, and I love it.

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#37

Post by pizza234 »

eric4smith wrote: post #12

Damn, this is such a GREAT idea. I've messed up repos a few times, and it's never good. It's always -- "what's the magic want I have to wave now"? The truth is, while we use git every day, most people really don't understand how it works. There I said it. And I'm not ashamed. I don't really know how Git works. And I think I'm not the only one. What does "git reflog" or "git reset --hard ...." do? What are the implica…

Are you using Git via GUI(s)?

Between my colleagues, there is a strong correlation between using a GUI, and messing up the repository.

I agree that Git's UX is pretty bad (checkout overloading; overlapping between checkout and reset; push overloading... yikes!), however, I believe that in contexts where using Git is a constraint, stop using GUIs is the best strategy one can apply to improve the understanding.

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#39

Post by arxanas »

float4 wrote: post #22

> novice users are terrified of it. When they make a mistake, many would rather delete and re-clone the repository than try to fix it In my experience most beginners use a GUI like Atlassian Sourcetree or the Github desktop client. It's a lot harder to make mistakes using the GUI in my experience. I still really like this idea though; eventually a subset of the beginners wants to learn the git cli and that sure seems…

GUI tools are a great step forward in my opinion, not because the GUIs are necessary, but because the Git command-line interface is really terrible.

I would like to see a GUI adopt these concepts. There's no reason why we should limit the commit graph display to only the current time, when we have enough information to scroll through its past states as well.

Re: Git undo: We can do better

#40

Post by swader999 »

pizza234 wrote: post #37
eric4smith wrote: post #12

Damn, this is such a GREAT idea. I've messed up repos a few times, and it's never good. It's always -- "what's the magic want I have to wave now"? The truth is, while we use git every day, most people really don't understand how it works. There I said it. And I'm not ashamed. I don't really know how Git works. And I think I'm not the only one. What does "git reflog" or "git reset --hard ...." do? What are the implica…

Are you using Git via GUI(s)? Between my colleagues, there is a strong correlation between using a GUI, and messing up the repository. I agree that Git's UX is pretty bad (checkout overloading; overlapping between checkout and reset; push overloading... yikes!), however, I believe that in contexts where using Git is a constraint, stop using GUIs is the best strategy one can apply to improve the understanding.

I agree and limit Git Gui usage to read-only use, any mods to git I use command line.
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