Git add -p: a powerful git feature • Hacker News Board

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#61

Post by johnkary » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 9:28 PM UTC

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

I never advocate GUIs as the primary means by which a developer works with version control. Sure it might be OK for some things like browsing history (GitX) but most GUIs often abstracts away much of the underlying complexity, which is absolutely great if you're a designer without much command-line experience, but absolutely a disservice to your in-depth knowledge as a developer and the tools you rely on every day.

If you write code day in day out you SHOULD be comfortable on the command-line. That's why I highlighted in the article that I need two tools to do my development: an editor and version control. You use these tools every day--EVERY day. There's no excuse for not knowing them intimately. They are the foundation for doing your job.

GUIs also aren't always available across platforms, either. For the most part, all the git CLI commands port from Mac, Linux and Windows (msysgit). Also, have you ever tried using a GUI when SSH'd into a remote server in a pinch? You can't. And you'll really wish you invested the time to learn those underlying CLI commands.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#62

Post by rogerbinns » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 9:53 PM UTC

johnkary wrote: post #61

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

I never advocate GUIs as the primary means by which a developer works with version control. Sure it might be OK for some things like browsing history (GitX) but most GUIs often abstracts away much of the underlying complexity, which is absolutely great if you're a designer without much command-line experience, but absolutely a disservice to your in-depth knowledge as a developer and the tools you rely on every day. I…

Do remember that half of all developers are below average/median for the relevant group. (See also "perpetual intermediates".)

My experience has been in forcing developers to use guis to do commits. It significantly improved their commits because they would browse over the changeset, could commit only specific hunks, didn't accidentally include extra gunk like test files, and generally made better messages.

It is certainly the case that the cli tools give experts the most power. But that power doesn't need to be exercised by everyone, and not even by experts on every occasion.

I would much rather my developer's heads are full of things relevant to the problem being solved (which is what pays the bills) than intricacies of cli tools.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#63

Post by daveungerer » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:04 PM UTC

johnkary wrote: post #61

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

I never advocate GUIs as the primary means by which a developer works with version control. Sure it might be OK for some things like browsing history (GitX) but most GUIs often abstracts away much of the underlying complexity, which is absolutely great if you're a designer without much command-line experience, but absolutely a disservice to your in-depth knowledge as a developer and the tools you rely on every day. I…

Mostly in agreement, I never said one shouldn't learn the git CLI and the fundamental concepts - I did that myself. But once you've mastered that, you're ready to move on to something that speeds up your day to day work.

Needing to use git now and then while SSH'd in is not a good reason to make your entire development process slower and more error-prone. I would also say that there is a larger problem with your process if you have the need to use git on "a remote server in a pinch".

It's kind of like learning to play a musical instrument. You absolutely must pay attention to the fundamentals as a beginner, but if you only ever work on the fundamentals you will never become a great musician.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#64

Post by yuvadam » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:09 PM UTC

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

Save time with a GUI? Seriously???

Keyboard strokes are, by any definition, much faster than mouse pointing-and-clicking. I have yet to find a single GUI that gets stuff done faster than what I can achieve with a command line prompt.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#65

Post by zem » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:16 PM UTC

johnkary wrote: post #61

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

I never advocate GUIs as the primary means by which a developer works with version control. Sure it might be OK for some things like browsing history (GitX) but most GUIs often abstracts away much of the underlying complexity, which is absolutely great if you're a designer without much command-line experience, but absolutely a disservice to your in-depth knowledge as a developer and the tools you rely on every day. I…

this is one of the cases where the gui [i like git-cola personally] is definitely a better way to do things. if you complain that it won't work "in a pinch", you're optimising for the uncommon case. yes, it's useful to know how to do it from the command line, but for day-to-day use i find the gui more efficient.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#66

Post by daveungerer » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:32 PM UTC

yuvadam wrote: post #64

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

Save time with a GUI? Seriously??? Keyboard strokes are, by any definition, much faster than mouse pointing-and-clicking. I have yet to find a single GUI that gets stuff done faster than what I can achieve with a command line prompt.

How about staging 8 files out of 10 that are currently modified, with no matching glob patterns for the CLI to use? I don't care how fast your keyboarding is, simply selecting the 8 (even better, select all and unselect the 2 you don't want) and dragging them into the index is the fastest way.

Or how about firstly determining which old commit you would like to revert a single file to, then secondly doing the actual revert. I can just view the file's log at a glance, get the revision I want, right-click and select "Reset File to This Commit".

By the way, I love Vim. But your disdain for "pointing-and-clicking" sounds like so much machismo.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#67

Post by mitchty » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:38 PM UTC

yuvadam wrote: post #64

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

Save time with a GUI? Seriously??? Keyboard strokes are, by any definition, much faster than mouse pointing-and-clicking. I have yet to find a single GUI that gets stuff done faster than what I can achieve with a command line prompt.

Yes, I use magit to stage chunks in emacs. Even if I have modified a file and end up staging the whole thing, looking at what i'm staging is way more useful than the way stock git presents things.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#68

Post by mnutt » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:38 PM UTC

yuvadam wrote: post #64

daveungerer wrote: post #58

Or you could just use a GUI app and save yourself a lot of time. SourceTree (OS X only, free - http://sourcetreeapp.com ) has changed the way I use git since I started using it a few weeks ago. The best thing is the discoverability - you don't need to know about the -p flag, for instance, since it's handled by the UI. Same for many other useful git commands that are hard to remember - they are often a simple option o…

Save time with a GUI? Seriously??? Keyboard strokes are, by any definition, much faster than mouse pointing-and-clicking. I have yet to find a single GUI that gets stuff done faster than what I can achieve with a command line prompt.

I can't imagine myself using a GUI for git, but there are some things that are faster with a GUI and mouse than with a keyboard. Almost all of them involve some kind of visual feedback. For instance, lately I've been working on some projects that involve absolutely positioning HTML elements on the page. This is a huge pain using a text editor--you make an estimate, save it, reload the page, see how it looks, and repeat. Just clicking and dragging is much, much easier.

Other than that, I generally think that keyboard is a faster input, though an 80-character terminal window is often a poor choice for visual feedback. Termkit has some interesting ideas: http://acko.net/blog/on-termkit/

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#69

Post by martian » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:39 PM UTC

If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend taking a look at Stacked Git (stg). It adds a beautiful layer on top of git that helps you manage a "stack" of commits. Useful when you're working on a large change and want to think about smaller commits.

Combined with `git add -p`, stg is easily the most useful git tool in my toolbox.

Re: Git add -p: a powerful git feature

#70

Post by bowmessage » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 10:42 PM UTC

mnutt wrote: post #68

yuvadam wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Save time with a GUI? Seriously??? Keyboard strokes are, by any definition, much faster than mouse pointing-and-clicking. I have yet to find a single GUI that gets stuff done faster than what I can achieve with a command line prompt.

I can't imagine myself using a GUI for git, but there are some things that are faster with a GUI and mouse than with a keyboard. Almost all of them involve some kind of visual feedback. For instance, lately I've been working on some projects that involve absolutely positioning HTML elements on the page. This is a huge pain using a text editor--you make an estimate, save it, reload the page, see how it looks, and repe…

For the future, mnutt: I love Chrome's developer tools, you can directly edit CSS rules from the browser by right clicking on it and selecting inspect element. Helps a lot with these situations!