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Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

gitbox.pierlis.com

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Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#41

Post by eru »

rfugger wrote: post #21
p3ll0n wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get me wrong Gitbox (and similar 'pretty wrappers') have their place just not as a learning tool. My rule of thumb for 'mission critical software' like version control systems - if you can't access its fully functionality at the shell when logged in to a remote machine then forget about it. Gitbox is great for your workflow until the day you have to actually use git and you have no time to 'actually' learn git.

Seems to me like the perfect time to learn git is when you need to use it.

You should prefer Darcs then. It's written in a lazy language that does everything at the last possible moment (if at all).

(Disclaimer: Tongue in cheek.)

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#42

Post by eru »

Maro wrote: post #23
jarin wrote: post #12

If you're a developer: Git is faster to work with and more powerful to use from the command line if you take maybe 20 minutes to go through a good tutorial. It took you much longer to learn how to program, and it's worth taking the time to get good at it. If you're a designer, writer, etc: Even though it only takes 20 minutes to learn, if a GUI is what it takes to get you to use version control I guess that is the le…

That's not true. You can't learn git in 20 minutes or 2 hours, unless you equate learning git to learning to type simple commands like 'git pull' and related. But then you're not really learning git, you're just typing generic VCS commands.

You can read about the basic architecture and concepts of git in 2 hours. It's not that complicated.

You may need more than those 2 hours to really digest and understand everything, and see how it plays out in practise. But after the first 2 hours you should be ready to use git. (Actually you should be using git, because how else are you going to learn?)

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#44

Post by CountSessine »

harpastum wrote: post #5

I think it's very possible that these pretty wrappers allow people to hobble along with little to no understanding of how git actually works. If that's the only way that you'll use version control, it's better than nothing. On the other hand, I heartily endorse actually learning how the git model works -- it's not too bad, I promise! . Good places to start: [1] Peepcode's "Git Internals" PDF - $9 - short, sweet, to t…

Another vote or Pro Git - great book. And the last chapter where the author steps you through manually inserting objects into the git database is revelatory.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#45

Post by kalid »

mickeyben wrote: post #24
aantix wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the cheat gem. sudo gem install cheat Then do : cheat git A great shortcut to all of the common git command sequences.

sweet didn't know about it, it's very handy with my little Mac OS X alias to open preview from command line : alias preview='groff -Tps > /tmp/tmp.ps && open -a Preview /tmp/tmp.ps' So you can do : cheat git | preview

Awesome, thanks for sharing that alias.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#46

Post by jshen »

KirinDave wrote: post #40

They're going to need to do a lot more UI work before I'd even consider this over GitX. Right now it looks like a less useful, less pretty, more confusing version of GitX.

i've always found gitx to be very confusing for simple things. I.e. viewing a single file at a few different points in the history.

frankly, gitx is a low bar

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#47

Post by KirinDave »

jshen wrote: post #46
KirinDave wrote: post #40

They're going to need to do a lot more UI work before I'd even consider this over GitX. Right now it looks like a less useful, less pretty, more confusing version of GitX.

i've always found gitx to be very confusing for simple things. I.e. viewing a single file at a few different points in the history. frankly, gitx is a low bar

Yes, it is. That's the problem.

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#49

Post by koenigdavidmj »

p3ll0n wrote: post #38
thethimble wrote: post #4

It seems to me that a lot of popular Unix-originated software seems to have really high learning curves (Vim comes to mind). I wish projects like git spent more efforts on things like GUIs. Does anybody know of any Linux alternatives?

My feeling is that people's strong preference for one interface and stern rejection to the other (GUI vs. CLI) are sometimes more psychological than technical. The truth, I think, lies somewhere in the middle. CLI and GUI are essentially complementary modes of interacting with the computer. CLI is generally easier if you can remember the commands and the options, which is the case if you use them a lot. If you don't…

Apple's A/UX had a nifty interface feature: but if you double-clicked a UNIX command-line executable and a `Commando script' existed for that program, then a little window would pop up with the common options. It would show you the command line that it was putting together, and when you click OK, it would bring up a terminal and run the command in it.

Here's a screenshot of how it worked for ls(1): http://applefritter.com/ui/aux/images/cmdo-ls.gif

Re: Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

#50

Post by aaronblohowiak »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #36
harpastum wrote: post #5

I think it's very possible that these pretty wrappers allow people to hobble along with little to no understanding of how git actually works. If that's the only way that you'll use version control, it's better than nothing. On the other hand, I heartily endorse actually learning how the git model works -- it's not too bad, I promise! . Good places to start: [1] Peepcode's "Git Internals" PDF - $9 - short, sweet, to t…

Do not underestimate the potential usefulness of a git utility that lets people do a couple of basic operations on a git repo while teaching them nothing. I know lots and lots of people who have no desire to learn version control but who need to interact with a VCS. But I think I understand where you're coming from. My take is that all of these supposedly-simpler interfaces are nowhere near radical enough. If you try…

In the Git community they call this an "alternative porcelain".

For subversion, changesapp or cornerstone might appeal to you.

DVCS has high intrinsic complexity, though i agree that simplifying assumptions could reduce git's apparent complexity

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