It might also help understanding, when talking about the history of git, to keep in mind that it came to be out of the urgent need for a tool to replace (then still proprietary) BitKeeper. I wouldn't say that bk is as hard to grok as git, but it's certainly complex as well. I wonder if some of git's idiosyncrasies are a result of intentionally avoiding a look&feel equivalent to bk lest that would alienate Mr. McVoy.