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Why don't people use git properly? | deadSimpleTech
deadsimpletech.comI think the worst failure mode I've ever seen is one team that maintained a "git repository" for a collection of analysis scripts that was simply a directory on a shared drive. It was technically speaking initiated as a git repository, but practically speaking it wasn't used as one: rather, the directory contained zipped copies of the code timestamped with when they were modified. There were very few commits to be seen, and I honestly hesitated to try and branch from them in any meaningful way. Of course there was no command line interface or anything to be had, and the git GUI software they had available was muddled enough that it confused me. In this situation, yes, *technically* they were using git, but in any real sense this clearly wasn't the case.
What irks me about it is that they can’t even agree on simple things like should it have one command e.g. checkout for multiple things, or should it be separated to multiple (switch, restore, checkout).
They can’t agree are they making a tool for idiots or developers so they go from one end (reset) to another(restore).
So users end up with an entangled mess of a overlapping yet not fully covering commands.
Then comes the so-called “expert” saying:
Yet they don’t ask themself why do new users think it has too steep learning curve, or an entry barrier.
So calling it “expert” tool is mockery by my standard. (If not obvious I agree with Mira Welner, git is critically overdue for good command clean-up before there can be talk about experts)
Maybe if newcomers had clear image of how git is supposed to work with clean easily explainable set of commands, larger percentage would stay on the wagon, just saying.
I felt they were pretty clear here. checkout is overloaded. switch and restore are the new, simpler ways. I switched (ha) myself and it was painless.
I also get the reluctance to deprecate or delete checkout because the whole world uses it