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Comment by craigds | Hacker News Reader

As a counterpoint, every time I've tried a git GUI (I've tried lots), I end up bashing my head against it within a few minutes. They usually make very basic things easy and anything even slightly outside the box basically impossible.

I'm much more productive using a couple of git commands that I can type in a few seconds, rather than hunting for things in menus and dialogs for ages.

> committing individual lines or chunks in my files instead of the whole file

That's really git 101. I'd expect if you haven't learned to do that via the CLI then maybe you gave up too soon and jumped straight to GUI? `git add -p .` is very easy to use.

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[GUIs] usually make very basic things easy and anything even slightly outside the box basically impossible.

Whereas in the CLI, complex operations are difficult but possible; trivial operations are also difficult but possible. :)

did you try magit?

Maybe it is of limited use for non-emacs users, but imho it's a fantastic way to use git with a perfect balance between making simple things very easy to do and allowing (almost) anything you can do with the CLI while providing excellent visual feedback.

I also found the git plugin [1] in the Sublime Text Package Control repository to be rather useful. The basic idea is similar to magit, with the (subjective) upside of avoiding the crazy Emacs hotkeys.

That said, since I discovered Spacemacs, I'm also enjoying using Magit - the "evil" control scheme for it is great, too.

[1]: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Git

magit is a marvelous piece of work indeed, and the thing that keeps me going back to Emacs every time I get curious about some other editor.

But yeah, I picked it up after quite some time working in Emacs, and the keybindings feel natural. Perhaps it would be very different for somebody new to Emacs.

i use a gui for two things:

1. gitk is the handiest way to undo the occasional accidental commit ("reset index, leave working tree untouched"). yes, i know there's bound to be a CLI way; no, i can't be bothered to look it up and remember it when i have gitk right there and it's not a mainstream use case.

2. git-cola does interactive commits way better than the console interface does.

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