this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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xkcd

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xkcd #1597: Git (imgs.xkcd.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Title text: If that doesn't fix it, git.txt contains the phone number of a friend of mine who understands git. Just wait through a few minutes of 'It's really pretty simple, just think of branches as...' and eventually you'll learn the commands that will fix everything.


Transcript[Cueball points to a computer on a desk while Ponytail and Hairy are standing further away behind an office chair.]

Cueball: This is git. It tracks collaborative work on projects through a beautiful distributed graph theory tree model.
Ponytail: Cool. How do we use it?
Cueball: No idea. Just memorize these shell commands and type them to sync up. If you get errors, save your work elsewhere, delete the project, and download a fresh copy.


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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone new to using git.. Thank you!!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I've been using git for 10+ years and still sometimes do this. I know I could fix it, I also pretty much know what to do to fix it. However nuking the thing from orbit and restarting takes like 30 secs, so it's never worth fixing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Git is something that is very comfortable to use after a year or two, but when you initially start using it, it is just so easy to mess things up in ways that are unrecoverable. I remember the silly days when I'd back up all my changes first before using git since I would so regularly lose everything through a combination of git commands.

It's easy for me now, but the initial stages punish mistakes severely. It's the dark souls of source control, except it's not really fun. It's just a very beginner unfriendly tool.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A good GUI can solve most problems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If my colleagues mess something up in their fancy GUIs, they come to me to fix it in the terminal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

There's dozens of us! Dozens!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

SCCS represent!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm using Mercurial for the last 2 years at current company, before that it was 5-7 years of Git on various jobs. It's so much better if you use it correctly (no long-living or big branches). I forgot what hell Git was sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I have used Mercurial at work for years, and Git for side projects. I screw up far less often in Mercurial, and its tools are easy to use. It's strange how thoroughly Git took over.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I used hg until python switched to git.

if python isn't going to bother them the battle is lost.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I literally did this yesterday.

I've since found chats with Bing are surprisingly informative.