Delightfully Wrong About Git

I'd say from experience that significantly less effort is spent transitioning to git than is spent worrying about and complaining about git before actually trying out the switch.

It took me a few hours to learn enough in git to replicate my experience in svn; sure, it takes longer than that to learn some of the other features, but the only time that is actually lost is the time spent relearning what one already knows.

In my case the effort was minimal. I certainly wouldn't measure the effort in "man-months". Here's how it went for me:

0. Research. This is one small part of why I read HN, and other assorted "news" sites. I like to stay current with the tools I use. I don't jump at every new tool just because it's new, but I understand that my current set of tools is not perfect. Sooner or later, I'm going to replace every tool in my toolbox with an even better tool. I may like my current set of tools today, but I understand that it's important not to get so attached to them that I stagnate as a developer. I think it's critically important for good developers to stay "intellectually curious".

1. I decided that git was worth trying. So, I started using it with my next new project. This allowed me to establish a new work flow without interrupting active projects. Yes, you'll need to read man pages, cheat sheets, etc. There's no point to adopting a new tool if it behaves exactly like the old one. So, it shouldn't be a surprise when you actually have to commit to learning the new tool. That said, I found git to be more user friendly than I'd expected based on the negative comments I'd read online.

2. I decided I liked the new work flow and that git was worth switching to. I moved my old projects over to git in less than a day and used git for all my work moving forward.

I'm sure this transition is different for everyone. I'm also sure that git is not yet (and may never be) a good fit for some people. But, I really don't see the point in disparaging those who think the switch is worthwhile for them.

Amen brother! I've been struggling with git for a couple months now, and I really don't see much benefit above and beyond svn. I got so pissed off the other day I took a moment to rant about it: http://blog.aisleten.com/2008/11/23/git-the-fsck-out/

I'm always willing to learn new things, but I heavily disagree with anyone who thinks git radically changes the programming landscape.

Many of us believe it is more than incrementally better. That's what all the DVCS fuss is about.

And when they do finally get it working, very nearly everything they praise is also true of other DVCSs. Mercurial, in particular, is already quite well documented and significantly easier to use, with very little loss in features (look at the extensions).

Git has the buzz, though, and many people fail to notice anything else.

Rather than replying to one of your several other posts, I'll just ask here - what do you think is so "complex and arcane" about git that makes it so difficult to learn?

Speaking as someone who had very little experience with SCMs before git, I have never found myself particularly stuck or frustrated, and have really found it quite easy to learn. There are plenty of great resources online and I've found the man pages detailed enough for quick-reference type stuff. I taught my co-worker how to use git in about 15 minutes, and in another 10 we both understood branches and conflict resolution.

Last night I posted a "which SCM" question and there was much love for Mercurial, and some love for Bazaar.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=374390

I started using Git as a filesystem long before I started using it as an SCM, so I never really went through the 'choosing' process, however, from the people that I talk to about this, Gits popularity tends to be because of the cheap local branching. There is no other system out there that is nearly as good at this as Git. Baz, Merc, Darcs, SVN, Perforce, CVS - these are all patch or changeset based systems where branching is tacked on in a complicated manner. Even the Hg Book recommends cloning for real branches over the local branch system it has.

This functionality is truly a deal-breaker for most people, and completely changes the way you develop and think about development. There are very few people I've ever met that have learned the git branching system (which is not hard to learn) and then went back to another DSCM. The fact is that none of these other systems are nearly as good at this as Git is because they way they think about history (patches/changesets vs DAG snapshots) is simply not well suited for it.

That, plus the fact that Git usability has improved so much recently that it's hard to argue that any of them are really easier to learn, and super powerful features for more advanced users like the staging area (which I also would hate to live without) I think explain why Git is becoming more popular at such a fast rate.

It's not that the other systems aren't getting love, but that it's getting harder to argue against Git and while all of them share largely the same basic data storage mechanism, Git's is entirely different, so while Git can always make the UI better (and it constantly is), the other systems are having a really hard time trying to catch up with the features Git had from day one.

Others may disagree with me, and will normally argue that it's just a fanboy bandwagon koolaid whatever, but I think that the real reason is that when most people learn Git fundamentals they realize that they become more efficient and none of the other systems can do that for them in the same way.