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Comment by TheFuture | Hacker News Reader

It seems like there's a huge opportunity for big software player to develop a git clone that is understandable and has a great UI. I'm thinking of Microsoft. Build the thing right into VS, it becomes the new standard for business source code management.

Everyone talks up git, but few every seem to actually use it, or use it to its full potential. And I agree that this has a lot to do with a crappy interface.

If git is truly the next great step in source code management, shouldn't it be easy to use? Isn't that kinda the definition of great software? You shouldn't have to be a linux command-line cowboy to have to use and understand git.

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> You shouldn't have to be a linux command-line cowboy to have to use and understand git.

No, you really should. Any programmer should be able to use the command-line as a prerequisite for calling themselves a programmer.

It is that attitude that we're all sick of.

Yeah, it's great that some people have the time and talent to gain deep understanding of their computer and software. Some of us just want to use great tools to actually build things and don't have the time to learn something new.

Version control shouldn't have to be hard. I don't understand why some programmers think it's a step backwards to use tools to make things easier. Yeah, maybe you lose some understanding in the abstraction, but not everyone who wants to use VCS needs to know deeply how it works.

A little history is due here :)

Git replaced BitKeeper (http://bitkeeper.com/), the first SCM deemed good enough by Linus to use for Linux kernel development. However, there was great discontent among the Free Software community because BK is a commercial product and Larry McVoy began withdrawing licenses to certain contributors, accusing them of violating the noncommercial license he provided at the time.

Linus then wrote git to replace BK, not because it was a deficient product, but because he needed to solve a political problem.

BK is still a great product - simpler than Git, but gives you 90+% of its functionality and is commercially supported by a very talented team.

At work we have a VCS that is obviously trying to compete with git while adding in the buckets of functionality people who actually pay for a VCS demand. Its OK, nicer to use than git, but not as powerful either.

I think git-improved is only going to come from the open source space. The vcs we use is bloated enterprise-y nonsense that is packed with bells and whistles and is a resource hog, you're not going to get regular developers interested in it, but you're never going to sell many copies of a vcs without that nonsense so you have to have it to satisfy purchase requirements.

If a git-improved turned up tomorrow and showed everyone how to do it and cost $1, someone would just nick those features and toss them into git proper before git-improved could get any traction.

What git needs is some fresh porcelain. We started with just git plumbing, then got the porcelain, but I think that the porcelain should be rebuilt knowing what we know from years of using git.

Github seems to be slowly working towards that. Their mac app hides a lot of details, and does some things "magically" (stashing uncommitted changes when switching branches, for instance). Doesn't do it well enough for you to forget about Git, but it seems like something they're thinking about.

> stashing uncommitted changes when switching branches, for instance

Really? This scares me to death. I absolutely want to be informed when I have uncommitted changes. What an anti-feature.

It could be argued that it already exists and that its called mercurial. Functionally equivalent to git, but with a _much_ simpler interface and better windows support.

Git has a little more momentum, probably because of Linus' pedigree, but I'm convinced that mercurial is objectively a better Git DVCS.

It's called mercurial. Seriously. It may not have the "raw power" of git, but at least the developers make an attempt at decent user interfaces.

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