As always: https://xkcd.com/1597/
Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
21–30 of 110 posts
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#22I just think of git as a graph and branches/tags as text pointers to nodes in the graph. Doesn't seem that complex to me... Maybe I "got gud" though and can no longer empathize with git beginners
Because that's exactly what it is, and it's not. When I explain git to newbies in this way, it's like something clicks in their brain and they just start to "get it" as well.
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#23Definitely helped a bit. I just graduated from university and am working full time as a developer now. I thought I knew how to use git because I knew how to do feature branching and merging. Boy was I wrong. Within a few weeks at my new job, I've realized that I'm missing so much useful git knowledge. When I learned about cherry-pick, my mind was blown. My goal right now is to develop a better mental model of git tha…
Jessica Kerr (jessitron) gives a good git internals talk that you can find on YouTube if that’s a helpful learning style.
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#24For me almost every Git teaching resource has gone like this: Step 1.It is explained that Git is a simple program, and that the underlined idea can be understood easily, it is only that other materials have done a bad job about it. Step 2. Tell the reader a blob is just the byte object containing the information you are source-controlling. "See how easy it is?" Step 3. Invent their own nomenclature/diagrams/metaphors…
Our IT department refuses to give an introduction to git. Smart guys.
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#25I ran across this little gem recently: > Git gets easier once you get the basic idea that branches are homeomorphic endofunctors mapping submanifolds of a Hilbert space. * Isaac Wolkerstorfer, https://twitter.com/agnoster/status/44636629423497217
I have never got all these jokes. When my job switched from Subversion to git it took me about one week plus reading a couple of articles to become more productive in git than I ever was in Subversion. Yes, version control is a bit tricky but git is not that hard to understand and was much easier than contemporary Subversion versions.
Things have gotten a little better. But, try to do something off the beaten path in Git, and you may ultimately get the joke.
For example: “two weeks ago an intern accidentally committed a file containing IP we’re not allowed to use, we need to erase it from the repository and all developer machines.”
Have fun with that one!
EDIT: I mean, try to figure this out from the official Git documentation (https://git-scm.com/docs). No, Stack Overflow and Github are not the official Git documentation. Believe it or not, the idea that "Git is hard to use" predates Stack Overflow.
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#26I ran across this little gem recently: > Git gets easier once you get the basic idea that branches are homeomorphic endofunctors mapping submanifolds of a Hilbert space. * Isaac Wolkerstorfer, https://twitter.com/agnoster/status/44636629423497217
A sparse Hilbert space. Beginners make that mistake a lot.
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#27Will read it, until now, for me,git feels like it tries to get in my way (probably because I think differently). I heard about fossil,(https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/fossil-v-git.wiki) does anybody have experience with it? Does it suck less?
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#28I just think of git as a graph and branches/tags as text pointers to nodes in the graph. Doesn't seem that complex to me... Maybe I "got gud" though and can no longer empathize with git beginners
It could be hard if you never took Discrete or another course that introduces graph theory. Or if you cheated your way through or barely scraped by. I can see how a CS freshman or someone from another field might struggle, but even then it's more comprehensible than any of the alternatives.
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#29[deleted]
Re: Git for Computer Scientists (2010)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never got all these jokes. When my job switched from Subversion to git it took me about one week plus reading a couple of articles to become more productive in git than I ever was in Subversion. Yes, version control is a bit tricky but git is not that hard to understand and was much easier than contemporary Subversion versions.
Things have gotten a little better. But, try to do something off the beaten path in Git, and you may ultimately get the joke. For example: “two weeks ago an intern accidentally committed a file containing IP we’re not allowed to use, we need to erase it from the repository and all developer machines.” Have fun with that one! EDIT: I mean, try to figure this out from the official Git documentation ( https://git-scm.co…
Erase from the repo, a little non-standard, but fine. Being asked to remove it from all developer machines sounds like someone misunderstood how version control works. Was that a real life example you hit?