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> I learned hg before git and the experience of switching to git was shockingly bad. I'm comfortable in both now and the big thing I'd miss if I went back to hg would be git stash (and I'm sure there's a hg plugin for it).

What about the index? Or the branching (bookmarks kinda work now I think), or the better remote management?

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I personally hate the index. It gets in my way far more often than I actually make use of it.

How does it ever get in the way? Just add `-a` and you can essentially ignore that there is an index on commits.

Let's say I modified an existing file (not staged) and then git add a new file. It is a work in progress, and the two changes are not supposed to be in the same commit.

Now, what can I do to see all changes I have made so far?

I have done this many times with subversion (svn diff) and mercurial (hg diff). Git's index just get in the way.

You're touting these as positives for git but in the context of training a large group to use a new VCS they are a negative.

I have found branching in Git to be a pleasure to teach, even to large groups. There is nothing I have to hide about them, implementation or otherwise. "This is how it works and this is what you can do thanks to that"

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