Comment by chipdart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chipdart | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> I agree, complexity bad. So why do you like Git? :-)

I think you're trying to fabricate problems where there are none.

Git's UX problem lies in the way it's CLI is not intuitive for those unfamiliar with it, but a) using GUI frontends like SourceTree allows newbies to eliminate that issue, b) with time you onboard to the CLI and everything just works.

At best, your suggestion to use another user interface is equivalent to suggesting Git users to adopt a new GUI frontend that's polished in a different way.

> Git is _incredibly_ complex to understand,

I don't know what you can possibly mean by "incredibly complex".

For end users, your mental model can be limited to a) you clone a repository, b) you commit and your changes, c) you push your changes to make them available to everyone, d) you pull everyone's changes to have access to them.

This is hardly rocket science. I mean, why do you think Git managed to become the world's de facto standard VCS and sets the gold standard for VCSs?

> I think you're trying to fabricate problems where there are none.

No, I'm not. The problems with Git's UX are well-documented, and have spawned many projects over the last 10+ years trying to deliver "Git, but easier" or "Git, but better", so it's not just me who sees this.

I'm happy for you that you're comfortable with Git, or so indoctrinated to the workarounds required to use Git well that you're used to them. I believe it's time for something very different, and much easier to understand.

> why do you think Git managed to become the world's de facto standard VCS

I think it was because Git has lightweight branches, and an ephemeral working directory, both of which made it nicer to use than the older, slower, centralized VCS's. I've kept both of those features in Grace.

I also think it was because of GitHub wrapping a lightweight social network around Git and popularizing it, at the same moment that shared open-source dev really started to catch on as an idea. Without GitHub, Git wouldn't have won.

I do not think it was because Git is easy to use, overall. Again, maybe 20% of devs really get it, and the rest don't and just hope nothing bad happens. It was better in some important axes, and we've all paid the bad-UX tax to get those better parts, but 2005 was a long time ago, with a very different set of network and hardware conditions, and we can do better.

> I believe it's time for something very different, and much easier to understand.

I'd like to reiterate my request for clarification of the concepts behind Grace. If it's as easy to understand as blobs, trees, commits, and refs, I'm sold!

> Without GitHub, Git wouldn't have won.

True, but git is good not because of GitHub, git is good because it's so simple.

I'm scared you will replace git with something easier but a lot more complex. I don't want easy, I want simple.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com