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New in Git: switch and restore

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Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#201

Post by he0001 »

pkulak wrote: post #169
quietbritishjim wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I say "just rebase your branch" and I can see the panic grow in their eyes. The irony of that is that resolving conflicts in a complicated multi-commit rebase is much more easily/efficiently done in a good GUI than on the command line. Not all GUIs support it though (I think SourceTree gives up if there's a conflict), in fact it's a bit of an acid test for a Git GUI. The Jetbrains IDEs (PyCharm, CLion, IDEA, etc.)…

Sublime Merge’s three-way merge is so good. It’s totally spoiled me.

Is sublime doing the merge instead of git? Or are you referring to use sublime as the merge tool to resolve conflicts?

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#202

Post by Shywim »

dagw wrote: post #182
intellix wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say I'm an expert but I've got about 10 years experience using git via CLI and whenever a noob does something weird and he's using an IDE I'm like... Sorry I have zero idea what this is trying to do and cannot help you

Isn't that just being incredibly lazy. Surely a reasonably experience person like yourself should be able to read the error message and at least get a rough idea about what the problem is. Then from there explain how you would fix it on the CLI and try to map that onto the GUI. Most Git GUIs map fairly closely to the underlying git model. Why not just say the truth "I could help you, but it's not my job, so I'm not g…

> Most Git GUIs map fairly closely to the underlying git model.

Maybe, but most Git GUIs don't provide clear error messages. This is the case of VSCode, which my teamates keep using. When you use Git CLI you can just have the original error message and know what's wrong.

I was also burned by sourcetree some years ago where it lost part of my code while doing a merge I didn't even understand.

I am not a Git expert. But I can remember the 5 commands needed to do my job every day: `commit`, `push`, `pull`, `rebase`, `checkout`. (you can also add `add` and `status` to the list if you want)

They're straighforward, except for `checkout` which is adressed by `switch` for the main usage.

If you use it wrong, Git CLI will tell you in most of the cases, and even tell you how to do what you intented to do. Git GUIs will probably tell you something wrong happened and left you at that or try to be more intelligent than you are and do something wrong.

> Isn't that just being incredibly lazy.

-> this is what I'd answer to do those Git GUIs.

> Isn't that just being incredibly lazy.

-> this is what I'd say to people who won't write these 5 commands on a sticky note or something and keep it for a month before realizing it wasn't hard to remember once you _commit_ to it and that Git is not hard, minus exceptional problems but Git GUIs absolutely won't help you with these exceptional problems.

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#203

Post by indymike »

crazygringo wrote: post #165
intellix wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say I'm an expert but I've got about 10 years experience using git via CLI and whenever a noob does something weird and he's using an IDE I'm like... Sorry I have zero idea what this is trying to do and cannot help you

First of all, using "noob" like that is offensive. Everyone's a "noob" at some point. And if that's how you talk and treat people, I probably wouldn't want your help. And second, what exactly mystifies you about what e.g. SourceTree menu commands do? They map clearly and intuitively to CLI commands. If you have "no idea" what it's trying to do then you're not even trying to be helpful. You're just being condescending…

> First of all, using "noob" like that is offensive. Everyone's a "noob" at some point. And if that's how you talk and treat people, I probably wouldn't want your help.

Unfortunately, a word needs to exist that stands in for this:

"Person, who isn't so different than myself when I started, with little experience who is mistake prone due to the lack of experience, who's mistakes creates disruption and often great expense at the most inconvenient times."

Being offended by noob just makes communication more difficult, and does not really change anything. We've had all kinds of much more offensive names for the same thing (many other names imply race, social status and so on). noob seems to be about as offensive as rookie, but one syllable less.

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#204

Post by filoeleven »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #100
oauea wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All visual git tools I've used suck and wound up eventually corrupting the repo. Also I've noticed that all of my colleagues who learned git using these visual tools didn't actually learn git, and have no idea how to anything other than add/commit/push. I say "just rebase your branch" and I can see the panic grow in their eyes.

> I say "just rebase your branch" and I can see the panic grow in their eyes. The irony of that is that resolving conflicts in a complicated multi-commit rebase is much more easily/efficiently done in a good GUI than on the command line. Not all GUIs support it though (I think SourceTree gives up if there's a conflict), in fact it's a bit of an acid test for a Git GUI. The Jetbrains IDEs (PyCharm, CLion, IDEA, etc.)…

SourceTree doesn’t give up. It tells you that you have conflicts to resolve. Once you do, “continue rebase” does what it says, either until the rebase completes or until it hits another conflict.

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#205

Post by Dayshine »

thwarted wrote: post #161
jbluepolarbear wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 10 years of git cli and I use GitHub desktop or Sourcetree most of the time. I started using using a git IDE to help support the team members that weren’t experienced in git that chose to use one. I work in games and a lot of game developers mostly know Perforce. I would never brush off a team member with “cannot help you”. I’m a git expert and I will figure out what’s wrong and fix it.

But are you an expert in the IDE? Are they having a problem with git or are they having a problem with the IDE?

Every IDE I know shows you a log of the raw commands its running. I use the IDE first, then if something goes wrong (which very very rarely happens, git isn't exactly complicated) I check the log and see what it's trying to do.

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#206

Post by akx »

These features were introduced in 2019 (and have been featured in git's help texts since).

Serious question - Why is it that they're called new two years later? Is it that no one cares to read git's prompts or release notes?

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#207

Post by cerved »

mberning wrote: post #144
cerved wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we use it because it's blazing fast, stable and extremely versatile

It’s not very fast when you account for all the time and productivity wasted on getting “unstuck” all the time.

I devoted some time to RTFM and actually learning how things work so I can't say that I run into this issue

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#208

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

aetherspawn wrote: post #73

A lot of comments along the lines of ‘why do people use instead of learning the commands’. For me, I used to use the terminal git, and I still do occasionally. But I use Sourcetree now for most things because I make less mistakes seeing the tree visually all the time. My job isn’t to use git, it’s to write specialist software. If I get the software written and the customer is happy, it doesn’t matter whether I use or…

> My job isn’t to use git, it’s to write specialist software. If I get the software written and the customer is happy, it doesn’t matter whether I use or not. Imagine having 100 complex things bouncing around your head and having to make that 101 when you forget the order of arguments to merge.

Imagine if you knew a cabinet builder who said:

"My job isn't to use a table saw, it's to build beautiful cabinets. If I get the cabinets built and the customer is happy, it doesn't matter whether I use a japanese handsaw or a CNC controlled laser. Imagine having 100 different pieces bouncing around around in your and having to then remember the assembly order."

Now, you might argue that this supports your point, by claiming that it actually doesn't matter whether the carpenter uses a japanese handsaw, table saw or CNC laser cutter. But I'd argue the opposite: it does matter whether the carpenter knows the tools they use as well as possible, because this will affect both the quality & speed of their work, but also the range of possibilities they can even consider. It doesn't matter much which tool they use, as long as they know it intimately and in depth.

I would argue that the same is true of the tools we use as software developers. Pretending that all of the skill lies only in the domain of creating actual lines of code is misleading. If you're using a revision control system, you owe it to yourself, your customers and your colleagues (if any) to be a master of that in the same way that you're a master of the specialist software you're creating.

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#209

Post by wizzwizz4 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #208
aetherspawn wrote: post #73

A lot of comments along the lines of ‘why do people use instead of learning the commands’. For me, I used to use the terminal git, and I still do occasionally. But I use Sourcetree now for most things because I make less mistakes seeing the tree visually all the time. My job isn’t to use git, it’s to write specialist software. If I get the software written and the customer is happy, it doesn’t matter whether I use or…

> My job isn’t to use git, it’s to write specialist software. If I get the software written and the customer is happy, it doesn’t matter whether I use or not. Imagine having 100 complex things bouncing around your head and having to make that 101 when you forget the order of arguments to merge. Imagine if you knew a cabinet builder who said: "My job isn't to use a table saw, it's to build beautiful cabinets. If I get…

Version control isn't a tool I use. It's the filesystem I store my files in.

Re: New in Git: switch and restore

#210

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

rbreaves wrote: post #140
snarfy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all using git only because Linus wrote it. The cargo cult is real and very much alive in our industry, I think precisely because we are all here to write specialist software. Too busy in our domain to worry about version control nuances so we just go with what is popular and don't think about it too much. It's not just version control, it's libraries, frameworks, languages, all of it. If it's not popular it's…

You assume that the creator of one of the.. if not the largest open source projects on the planet might not understand the issue at hand better than literally anyone? That seems arrogant. I imagine more thought & care went into git than you can fathom.

Isn't that the "appeal to authority" fallacy? Mercurial demonstrates that you can have a VCS with less painful and frequent gotchas and certainly the grottiness of the git submodule mechanics, for example, doesn't show as much thought and care as one would hope.
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