What I've learned from jj • Hacker News Board

Re: What I've learned from jj

#41

Post by turbocon » Sat, May 03, 2025, 2:11 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #38

wtallis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worrying about individual commits is also what makes it possible for you to later use git bisect without going crazy.

How often do you find that command useful? In ~18 years of git use, I have never needed it, but I see it mentioned often as an important reason to handle commits in some certain way. I wonder what accounts for the difference.

Honestly if you haven't ever used got bisect I'd say you're missing out on a very powerful tool. To be able to, without any knowledge of the code base, isolate down to the exact commit that introduced a big is incredibly powerful

Re: What I've learned from jj

#42

Post by ajb » Sat, May 03, 2025, 2:18 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #38

wtallis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worrying about individual commits is also what makes it possible for you to later use git bisect without going crazy.

How often do you find that command useful? In ~18 years of git use, I have never needed it, but I see it mentioned often as an important reason to handle commits in some certain way. I wonder what accounts for the difference.

It's useful when the codebase is difficult to debug directly. Eg, your users have a bug that maybe appears on specific hardware, which the developers don't have. The users can't be expected to comprehend the code base enough to debug, but bisect is a mechanical process that they are capable of.

Having said that, bisect is also an O(log N) method and it's useful where otherwise you might end up spending O(N) time debugging something. I have myself split a configuration change into many stupidly-small commits (locally, without the intention to push that) purely so I could run bisect instead of manually reviewing the change to figure out which part broke stuff.

Re: What I've learned from jj

#43

Post by hdjrudni » Sat, May 03, 2025, 2:29 AM UTC

> If I had s -> t -> u -> v and wanted to reorder them, it’s as easy as jj rebase --revision u --after s, and I’d end up with s -> u -> t -> v,

How did t end up after u?

I'd expect that to fork into (s -> t) and (s -> u -> v). Either that or maybe (s -> t -> v) and (s -> u).

Re: What I've learned from jj

#44

Post by esafak » Sat, May 03, 2025, 2:36 AM UTC

cole_ wrote: post #33

Surprised no one has mentioned https://graphite.dev/ yet. Our team uses it for stacked PRs, and it works really well.

How do they compare?

Re: What I've learned from jj

#45

Post by manchmalscott » Sat, May 03, 2025, 2:40 AM UTC

I've tried out jj a little bit personally, but without exaggeration I am using git submodules in every single "real" project I'm actually working on, so lacking support for submodules is a complete non-starter for me :/

Re: What I've learned from jj

#46

Post by sigmonsays » Sat, May 03, 2025, 2:54 AM UTC

i'm growing tired of these git alternatives.

I feel like people should just learn to use git.

Re: What I've learned from jj

#47

Post by aiiizzz » Sat, May 03, 2025, 2:57 AM UTC

I've been using jj, but am considering going back to plain git now because all the latest llm tools know git and not jj. I don't recommend spending time on it now.

Re: What I've learned from jj

#48

Post by hombre_fatal » Sat, May 03, 2025, 3:07 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #38

wtallis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worrying about individual commits is also what makes it possible for you to later use git bisect without going crazy.

How often do you find that command useful? In ~18 years of git use, I have never needed it, but I see it mentioned often as an important reason to handle commits in some certain way. I wonder what accounts for the difference.

A coworker taught me how to use it long ago, else I would never have known it was there to reach for.

And the few times I've reached for it, I was really thankful it was there.

Re: What I've learned from jj

#49

Post by esafak » Sat, May 03, 2025, 3:23 AM UTC

When I'm developing I inevitably fix one thing after another as I pass through the code. What I'd like is a tool to take such PRs and automatically split it up into loosely coupled, cohesive chunks.

Re: What I've learned from jj

#50

Post by spooneybarger » Sat, May 03, 2025, 3:25 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #38

wtallis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worrying about individual commits is also what makes it possible for you to later use git bisect without going crazy.

How often do you find that command useful? In ~18 years of git use, I have never needed it, but I see it mentioned often as an important reason to handle commits in some certain way. I wonder what accounts for the difference.

I personally bisect regularly to find when issues were introduced.