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We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

blog.gitbutler.com

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Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#611

Post by zarzavat »

gonzalohm wrote: post #379
zarzavat wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, nothing. But psychologically git commits represent a unit of completed work, whereas with AI agents what's needed is a kind of agent-wise undo history such that you can revert back to the state of the repo 1 minute ago before Claude did an oopsie all over your repo. You can definitely use git as a backend for building such a system, but some extra tooling is necessary.

Just create a new branch before you implement new features and if the agent messes up don't merge the branch. That way you get the best of both worlds. The buggy code is still there in case it's needed but it's not in the main branch

Most of the time when I'm using Claude my working tree is already dirty because I'm mid-task. I usually try to do a throwaway commit before every interaction with Claude, but it's easy to forget, or to leave the "accept edits" mode on accidentally and my working tree gets corrupted. Also having to commit takes you out of flow because you suddenly have to deal with any new gitignores, which requires at least a glance at untracked files to make sure you're not committing anything you shouldn't be. I want to be able to undo the state of my working tree to the moment before a particular interaction with Claude, just like how I can undo a file.

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#612

Post by mentalgear »

jakeydus wrote: post #594
jitl wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the cli is open sources and ends up finished i don't see what the problem is to let a vc fund them building it

VCs are not particularly well known for their commitment to building products that they can't make money off of. They'll promise you the OSS world and then as soon as they can they'll pull the rug out from under you.

To paraphrase Microslop's "Embrace, extend ... build a walled garden around."

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#613

Post by NewsaHackO »

conartist6 wrote: post #534
myroon5 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: don't pitch from a conartist6 username

It's been my username for 20 years and I'm not changing it to be more corpo-propriate now. I think it makes more sense if you know that my name is Conrad. It's pretty easy to find out who I am in the real world too. For one thing I'm a private pilot and for 10 years I had an airplane personally registered to me, making my name and address a matter of (open) public record.

I agree completely. However, this mentality is why honest people like you get pushed to the sidelines, and manufactured, perfect imaged, 1000+ referenced in LinkedIn types are more successful in getting VC funding. If this is seriously your goal, you are going to have to play the game. Remember, even when perfectly playing the game in your position you will likely fail. If this is what you want to do, do you want to be taken out of the running for something like a username?

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#615

Post by znnajdla »

Geniuzz wrote: post #471
znnajdla wrote: post #191

I continue to be amazed at American capital allocation. $17M for an idea to improve Git? For a fraction of that money Ukrainian housewives build anti-drone air defence systems in their garage that protect their country. For that kind of money you could build an apartment block to ease the housing shortage. You could invest in electricity resilience and build mini nuclear power plants or a small wind farm. Soviet capi…

I don’t understand the negative sentiment here. What’s the problem? Do you think less money should be going into VC? Just some numbers ~1.5M housing units are built in the US with an approx cost of $300k - $400k. That is $450B to $600B going into housing units construction every year. On the other hand VC has maybe $1T AUM in the US. Maybe 10%-20% of that is deployed every year? So $100b to $200B. What is wrong with…

The problem is they’re pouring insane amounts of money into non-problems. I use Git every day. There’s no problem with Git. Real problems that people suffer with everyday like healthcare and housing and even defense are doing so pitifully and we’re spending $17M on improving Git? If you don’t see the ridiculousness you really are in a bubble.

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#617

Post by sethev »

trashb wrote: post #533

> The old model assumed one person, one branch, one terminal, one linear flow. Not only has the problem not been solved well for that old model, it’s now only been compounded with our new AI tools. A bit of a strange thing to say in my book. Git isn't SVN and I think these problems are already solved with git. I agree that the interface is not always very intuitive but Git has the infrastructure which is very much fo…

More power to them for re-visiting this, but agree with you:

> The old model assumed one person, one branch, one terminal, one linear flow.

That sounds exactly like the pre-git model that git solved..

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#618

Post by ing33k »

schacon wrote: post #462
factorialboy wrote: post #192

Installed GitButler to try it out — and realized it installs malicious Git hooks to take over the git commit workflow: * pre-commit — The malicious one. It intercepted every `git commit` attempt and aborted it with that error message, forcing you to use `but commit` instead. Effectively a commit hijack — no way to commit to your own repo without their tool. * post-checkout — Fired whenever you switched branches. GitB…

Just to clarify (and we do say this when you run `but setup`), the `pre-commit` hook is needed because of the way that we manage commits - we allow for multiple parallel applied branches, which Git cannot do. The way we accomplish this is to maintain a hidden 'megamerge' commit (as JJ would say). All Git commands work fine the way we're doing it except 'git commit', which is not aware of our operating model and will…

this is bad developer UX ( in my opinion). Please reconsider . I lost interest the moment I was not able to commit using normal git commands.

  ⎿  Error: Exit code 1

     GITBUTLER_ERROR: Cannot commit directly to gitbutler/workspace branch.

     GitButler manages commits on this branch. Please use GitButler to commit your changes:
       - Use the GitButler app to create commits
       - Or run 'but commit' from the command line

     If you want to exit GitButler mode and use normal git:
       - Run 'but teardown' to switch to a regular branch
     … +5 lines (ctrl+o to see all)
but was not installed ( I installed the mac app ) .

I still haven't uninstalled the app and will try to figure out the working model.

Also please offer some skill file or a text I can add to my CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md so that when I ask claude to commit , it will go through gitbutler...( edit: looks like it is there, but the discovery is hard ) .

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#619

Post by lispisok »

Vampyre wrote: post #563

- leads with amount of money raised - mentions a16z - i use git every single day and have no idea what exactly the thing will do they aren't building something to help you, they're building something to trap you. even if it's free, does things you like, etc., do not use it. their end goal is to screw you

They dont want to build the next git they want to build the next Github. It will have one of those licenses where you can use it but not offer a managed service like the Elastic License

Re: We've raised $17M to build what comes after Git

#620

Post by NateEag »

olalonde wrote: post #491
aoshifo wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be I live in a bubble, but I don't use git because of GitHub or with GitHub that much. No doubt, GitHub is/was great for distributing software but I feel we'd still all be using git without GitHub

Practically no one was using Git before GitHub (except Linux). Subversion was much more widespread.

Subversion was (and is) an admirable project, and filled a void by being much better than CVS.

When I discovered git, I couldn't go back to svn - git fit my mind _so_ much better.

It might not have seen the meteoric rise without GitHub, but just like it's weird to find servers running an OS other than Linux these years, I suspect there would have been a steady growth that eventually made it dominant.

I suspect it will be very hard to unseat git at this point - for all its untuitive UI it's good enough for most things, and it's been slowly improving for the use cases where it's weak.

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