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Comment by kcl | Hacker News Reader

Git's UI/UX is one of the worst engineering sins to be committed in the last two decades, and this website shows why. Literally nothing about git is intuitive and the "underlying model" is entirely ad-hoc. Instead of celebrating how Linus built git in only a few days he should be castigated for knowingly setting up ill-conceived software to go viral.

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I think the underlying model is fantastic, but the names for operations, and how they are grouped, are somewhat ad hoc.

The idea of a directed graph of file system snapshots is pretty intuitive. Add in branches as pointers to locations in that graph. This is a fantastic model for source control.

However the operations that stage a potential update to the graph of snapshots is prettt confusing. The "index" is a terrible name that is overloaded with so many other non-git meanings, non of which really map to git usage.

That, and all the rest of the names are pretty hard to understand. Particularly reset, whose documentation is inscrutable without translation from git-speak into technical language, or at least a dictionary of what all those words that are used actually mean. And since reset is such a useful tool and has about eleventy different functions, it all becomes impossible to learn from the docs on your own.

> I think the underlying model is fantastic

The well-documented underlying model used to confuse me a lot - especially for operations like merging, rebasing (squash, reorder, ...), cherry picking, etc. They started to make sense only when I realized that git uses diffs/patches to propagate changes between unrelated commits. While the on-disk format is purely snapshot-based, the tool itself is a hybrid. As far as I can tell, this trips up a lot of others too.

Agreed, the first step is realizing that the data structure is a graph of snap shots. And then a lot of the primary operations are about calculating deltas between arbitrary commits, and the applying those deltas elsewhere.

You shouldn’t present your own opinions as facts. I find Git intuitive, and it works as I expect it to do. I suspect a lot of people agree since Git became the champion of the DVCS crusades.

Good modern software always offers an undo option. Where is "git undo"?

It’s the first thing in the article. Git reflog. (BTW you won’t get any disagreement from me about the lack of intuitiveness of the command name. But, in a way, git’s whole reason for existing is to undo, and almost everything you do in git can be undone by design.)

The reflog is very helpful but I don't think it counts as an "undo". Some operations (like git add or git push) won't show up in the reflog.

Even the operations which do show will often require more thought to undo than a hypothetical "git undo" would. I know how to use the reflog but I often go out of my way to avoid it because "git branch tmp HEAD; git $POSSIBLE_MISTAKE; git reset ---hard tmp; git branch -D tmp" requires less effort than deciphering the reflog's output.

Git reflog absolutely counts as the first step of undo for several workflows, but you’re right there are other commands needed for some kinds of undo.

Undoing a push does require a different set of commands, but my point, to the question @amelius asked, is that you can undo both push and add, and whatever other mistake you’re thinking of, difficult or not.

Of course, but Git keeps track of everything you undo, which at the meta level is something you can't easily undo ...

Maybe I misunderstood your question, what were you asking about above?

Ah yes, the classic `rm --undo` saved me so many times. No, command-line interfaces rarely offer undo. The onus is on the user to not do irreversible things when they may need to be reversed.

Git, coincidentally, does have something equivalent to undo history: the reflog.

"rm" was made in the '70s. Git was made in the '00s.

Nothing prevents rm from being made to “put in trash bin” in the year 2022. Your argument seems weak. rm removes. mv moves. If you want mv, use mv.

Nobody said that rm was perfect ;)

  git reset HEAD~1

Usually works good enough for me. Idk if this is the proposed way to undo stuff

> for knowingly setting up ill-conceived software to go viral

I doubt that was the intention. Linux just needed a versioning system tailored to its needs, and that's exactly what Git is. Can't blame its creators that other people used it for scenarios it wasn't built for.

Right, you are the cop-out I am complaining about. Linus is the premier figurehead of the premier open-source project. When a build tool he made for that project goes viral it isn't an accident. If it was anybody else's pet versioning control system would we even be talking about it?

What you're saying is that anything Linus does, for whatever purpose, should be designed to cover a wide variety of use cases and please a large number of people, even if he's just writing something for himself. I think that's an unrealistic expectation.

If it went viral, yes. I agree most of the time I feel like the world is run by evil folks twiddling their fingers in secret.

This is not one of those times. I agree there's a chance there are better word choices or feedback for some commands, but overall once you 'learn the language' it really is a lean, mean, well designed piece of software.

Folks that complain about the UI/UX don't realize it wasn't designed for less technical folks. It was designed for the folks who needed it.

It's success must at least partially prove that the UI/UX is not 1/10. Any real engineer will tell you, there are times where they wish they could do something better but the requirements and constraints left them making tough decisions, and that doesn't mean they aren't proud of their work.

It's success is also partially due to the fact that it is lean and mean, which allows it to be applicable to nearly all software projects of any flavor. So I don't understand why folks argue it could have been done better. If it was 'better', in my view it wouldn't have been successful. The success was driven by it's succinct design and Linus' take it or leave it attitude.

Technically accurate studio monitors don't sound as pleasing to the ear as good well tuned speakers. But they are exceptional at the job they were designed for. This is like that.

There is no cop-out. I use git, with pleasure and gratitude, for everything, because of its excellent design and performance. It appeals to my intuition, and I like the interface. You are entitled to your opinion, but not to confuse it with objective reality.

Git is definitely not ill-conceived and jealously castigating Linus for creating it and freely giving it away is no more than a petty insult.

Git is fast. And turns out that's a fundamental feature for good UX. As a user you can learn a complicated UI, but you can't make a slow UI fast.

(FWIW, I don't consider git complicated and I'm far from a power user)

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