I admit I don’t get it. Tons of people are using Git these days, and most of them seem incredibly happy with it. I don’t really have any relevant experience with it (just used a couple of days), but I didn’t like it that much. Feels weird, clunky and complicated (especially, the interface is horrid, but then I’m used to Darcs so I’m biased/spoilt there).
Yeah, yeah. So everyone says that Git’s power lies in the concepts it’s built on, and that they’re different from other VCS, and you have to learn all that to really “get” Git. But at the same time they admit the documentation sucks and doesn’t really help you understand it. So, to be enlightened you have to play a lot with it then. I just don’t feel like it. I’m just afraid that all that power… well, I just won’t give a shit about it, to put it bluntly. Having a quick look at the net, the arguments supporting Git seem to sound really obscure or not that life saving to me.
And yes, I realise that sounds like the Blub Paradox in Beating the averages, but I just can’t see how a revision control system can be so wonderful and make a difference for small and medium projects. I have no doubt Git does make a difference every single day for the Linux kernel, but when most (non free software) projects work “not that bad” even with a centralised VCS like Subversion, is there really any important feature that Git can add vs. any other distributed system (I’m thinking mostly Mercurial here)? Isn’t the interface going to have a much bigger impact in everyday work (and everyone seem to agree that Git’s still sucks)?
Personally, I’m looking forward to certain talk about Git, to see if it will make me see the light ;-)
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The only thing that makes sense in git is the lower level stuff – how everything is screwed and bolted together. It is based on a really simple, and to me clever, architecture. But the UI and the documentation really does kind of suck.
But the big advantage lays in the community. Because it is made by this motley crew of rockstar programmers all the kids dig it, and blogs about all the stuff that the retarded documentation is unable to explain you. All your answers are one google away.
May 14, 2008 @ 12:20 am
If you’re used to SVN or CVS, then _anything_ is better. Btw, can you please tell them to upload opera:talks to YouTube? =)
May 14, 2008 @ 8:12 am
Yeah, I know. I meant more in the context of DVCS. Most Git users seem to defend it over, say, Mercurial, which looks pretty powerful, easily extensible with Python, and it’s distributed too anyway. And I, that I don’t get Git yet, wonder if it will really be better than Mercurial for “not huge” projects, because I feel that even if Git is more powerful, that power won’t really make a difference in those projects, and Mercurial’s better interface will have a much bigger impact, _everyday_ for almost _every_ member of the team.
About the opera:talks, yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll talk to someone and try to get that rolling…
May 14, 2008 @ 6:29 pm