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Comment by sthatipamala | Hacker News Reader

Github is not loyal to the Git way of life. They reinvent or add sugar to parts of Git that do not appeal to amateur developers.

For example, Github for Mac hides the Git workflow with semantics that are similar to Dropbox and SVN. They have also switched the default authentication from SSH-based to username and password based.

This is very intelligent on their part. Less scary = more developers = solidified Github as THE code repo of the Internet.

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Increasing the accessibility of Git isn't treason. Quite the opposite: Git is now used by far more developers. That's a win for the "Git way of life."

And the original, "expert" workflow is still available for those who want it.

> That's a win for the "Git way of life."

No it isn't. That's a win for the GitHub workflow. People learn how to use git locally, if they aren't using the mac or windows client. They don't learn how to collaborate the standard way, though.

Never said otherwise. As I said, Github is very intelligent to lower the barrier to entry.

I HATE the auth switch. Entering username and password is very irritating.

For people that have never setup SSH, HTTPS auth is very simple. The latest Git supports credential cachers so you don't have to type the password in each time. I also personally love that the same GitHub URL works in the browser and through the Git CLI.

If you click the "SSH" button on GitHub repositories, it'll remember your preference.

It never remembers, for me.

And thanks, now I know why only some repos ask for username/password.

It remembers for me, but their pull request emails always send the https link, which is annoying as shit. I emailed them about it, and their response was that they are trying to get everyone to use https, so no, they won't switch it or make it smarter.

Argh. I like my SSH credentials, my GitHub password is not quite so secure.

I complained about this too, but for their new repo screen.

It's a fairly recent addition to git (January 2012). You need at least version 1.7.9 to use credential caching. [1]

[1]: http://git-blame.blogspot.com/2012/01/git-179.html

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