Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

emacsair.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 357 posts

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#61

Post by grumpyprole »

bsdubernerd wrote: post #56

For the sake of discussion, can we get some contrarian views? I'm using magit, along with tig, plain git and sometimes (!) even plain "vc", depending on context. I'm in the camp that thinks it's ok and it's pretty comfortable to use within emacs, but I don't see the earth shattering praise I see every time it's mentioned here. Tig for example is so much faster for history and blame perusal that I find it faster to ke…

Magit is unfortunately so slow on Windows that it's unusable. This is a real shame, because the UI is fantastic. I think a better architecture would use libgit2 calls rather than launching multiple git processes for every single magit operation.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#62

Post by StreakyCobra »

Tip of the day: you can have `magit` as a fast and standalone tool by using this script (require emacsclient to be setup properly):

  #!/usr/bin/env bash
  
  emacsclient -c --eval "(progn (magit-status) (delete-other-windows))"
This will open the repository under the current path in a maximized magit window.

The only downside I have for now about magit is when using `pre-commit` it can run for long sometimes, so it would be nice to see the progress/output of pre-commit while waiting for the commmit message buffer to appear. If you know a way I'm all ears.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#63

Post by aequitas »

johnnyAghands wrote: post #18

I've been using tig for things like this. Are they related somehow? Tig is amazing :)

I love Tig for quickly visualising and browsing the Git tree. Wish it would support interactive rebase in a more elaborate way so you could maybe reorder or amend commits from the tree view itself, instead of breaking out into Git commands.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#64

Post by jolmg »

grumpyprole wrote: post #61
bsdubernerd wrote: post #56

For the sake of discussion, can we get some contrarian views? I'm using magit, along with tig, plain git and sometimes (!) even plain "vc", depending on context. I'm in the camp that thinks it's ok and it's pretty comfortable to use within emacs, but I don't see the earth shattering praise I see every time it's mentioned here. Tig for example is so much faster for history and blame perusal that I find it faster to ke…

Magit is unfortunately so slow on Windows that it's unusable. This is a real shame, because the UI is fantastic. I think a better architecture would use libgit2 calls rather than launching multiple git processes for every single magit operation.

Is the launching of processes on Windows so much slower than on Unix-type OSes that it would cause it to be "so slow" for that reason?

Maybe the reason is another? Personally, I once had Magit act real slow at times because git-annex had added some git hook for something that I didn't need. Just removing that hook improved performance massively. Perhaps something similar is happening.

Also, I'm not sure Emacs Lisp can interface directly with C libraries, so using libgit2 might not be an option.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#65

Post by skohan »

KingMob wrote: post #40

This post is the epitome of "tell, don't show", when it should be the opposite. It reads like it wants to convince you to try magit, without demoing a single example of how it's superior.

> Commands are invoked, not by typing them out, but by pressing short mnemonic key sequences.

It also sounds magical in the worst kind of way.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#66

Post by jrootabega »

skohan wrote: post #65
KingMob wrote: post #40

This post is the epitome of "tell, don't show", when it should be the opposite. It reads like it wants to convince you to try magit, without demoing a single example of how it's superior.

> Commands are invoked, not by typing them out, but by pressing short mnemonic key sequences. It also sounds magical in the worst kind of way.

It's just like vi, for whatever that's worth to anyone. It also has "transient", which shows you what the key sequence you've input so far will do and lets you customize it.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#67

Post by rich_sasha »

bsdubernerd wrote: post #56

For the sake of discussion, can we get some contrarian views? I'm using magit, along with tig, plain git and sometimes (!) even plain "vc", depending on context. I'm in the camp that thinks it's ok and it's pretty comfortable to use within emacs, but I don't see the earth shattering praise I see every time it's mentioned here. Tig for example is so much faster for history and blame perusal that I find it faster to ke…

I use emacs and git, and never got on with magit. Not entirely sure why, but here's a braindump:

- I generally dislike layers on layers; while I seriously hate the git UI, I'd rather learn that, as it's a more portable skill, than learn another UI, that relies on emacs and a package installed. First thing I do on e.g. a new cloud instance is clone a bunch of stuff, and often work on an under-setup machine for a while. For similar reasons, I don't use shells like Fish, which, nice as they may be, funnel me into something totally incompatible with good old sh. Bash and zsh, as far as I use them, are compatible.

- I work in tmux, and emacs in terminal, the overhead of switching to a terminal and typing some git stuff is tiny.

- I tried magit and just didn't get it. I couldn't couldn't find a happy path where I thought, "ah yes this is niice".

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#68

Post by dhess »

jolmg wrote: post #64
grumpyprole wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magit is unfortunately so slow on Windows that it's unusable. This is a real shame, because the UI is fantastic. I think a better architecture would use libgit2 calls rather than launching multiple git processes for every single magit operation.

Is the launching of processes on Windows so much slower than on Unix-type OSes that it would cause it to be "so slow" for that reason? Maybe the reason is another? Personally, I once had Magit act real slow at times because git-annex had added some git hook for something that I didn't need. Just removing that hook improved performance massively. Perhaps something similar is happening. Also, I'm not sure Emacs Lisp ca…

Unfortunately, it's pretty slow on macOS, as well. I love Magit, but there are times when I feel like it's hindering me more than helping due to the performance.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#69

Post by brabel »

bsdubernerd wrote: post #56

For the sake of discussion, can we get some contrarian views? I'm using magit, along with tig, plain git and sometimes (!) even plain "vc", depending on context. I'm in the camp that thinks it's ok and it's pretty comfortable to use within emacs, but I don't see the earth shattering praise I see every time it's mentioned here. Tig for example is so much faster for history and blame perusal that I find it faster to ke…

Ok, let me try.

I prefer IntelliJ's git interface.

Magit can do everything IJ can, but in IJ, I can find how to do things more easily and it just feels easier to do things, probably because it's much more GUI than text compared to Magit. For example, difficult merges are extremely easy in IntelliJ, I can edit code in the diff view itself while I resolve conflicts... in Magit it requires getting used to the different diff views, something I am still trying to figure out, but it seems trickier to do "in-place" changes in the code.

That said: I probably only prefer IJ because I've been using it much longer than I have used Magit... and the difference for me is very small, so I suspect the more I use Magit, the more the gap will close and I may eventually like it even more than IJ.

Re: Magit, the magical Git interface (2017)

#70

Post by sokoloff »

wodenokoto wrote: post #58
jwr wrote: post #43

Magit is such an unbelievably good piece of software. If you haven't used it, please at least take a look. It seems like "just a GUI for git", but that's missing the point — many operations suddenly become frictionless, so your entire workflow changes. I regularly do things like "stash some of my changes, switch branch, cherry pick a commit, switch branch, do an interactive rebase reordering commits and dropping one,…

Can I like magit if I don’t like emacs?

You can, but it will be worth it for you to spend a little effort to learn the basic buffer, window, and cursor management keystrokes.

My 12 year old uses magit as a git interface and nothing else in emacs. That’s not a great testimonial as it was my direction to do that, but it seems to work just fine.

The areas where magit earns outsized praise is not around a basic “pull, add and commit everything, push” workflow, but rather around being selective about crafting self-consistent but single-theme revisions. That will not be as fluid for someone with no fluency in emacs keyboard navigation, but I think I’d still find it easier than using the git command line to do it. (Hard for me to say with 30 years of emacs in the rear view.)

Post reply on HN