I don't know if it was meant to be a dig but I hope you don't think the fact that Git was a big advancement on SVN means it doesn't deserve any criticism.

It's very widely remarked that the Git CLI is pretty miserable, and as soon as a better (so I hear) alternative comes along they suddenly realise and start improving it... This happens all the time in software.

Some software has crap UX or missing obvious features (e.g. comments in package.json). People try and improve it but are rebuffed because the maintainers claim it's fine as it is. Effort goes elsewhere to a competitor project which starts to attract users. Maintains of the original project have a sudden and coincidental change of heart!

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chrishill89 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It's very widely remarked that the Git CLI is pretty miserable, and as soon as a better (so I hear) alternative comes along they suddenly realise and start improving it... This happens all the time in software.

This command is implemented by just one single (but prolific) contributor. His own idea.

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locknitpicker 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It's very widely remarked that the Git CLI is pretty miserable, (...)

You hear some very vocal critics expressing hyperbolic personal opinions on the topic, but I find that in the majority of the cases the opinions aren't objective or grounded on reality. It's just people whining.

The litmus test is asking what is the worst example of this "pretty miserable" CLI they talk about. More often than not it's just baseless nitpicking. I recommend you give the litmus test a try to see how far this myth flies.

	▲	WorldMaker an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I feel like a lot of this is an "elephant memory" problem, too. ("An elephant never forgets.") Git was built very quickly and its early CLI was intentionally rough. Git was originally built with the idea that it was going to be all "plumbing" and to leave the good UX decisions to whatever "porcelain" people wanted to use on top, with some even expecting that there might be multiple competing "official" "porcelain" CLIs. Eventually that debate got settled in the surprise way to some of the earlier decisions about git being plumbing-first in that eventually git picked up both the "plumbing" and the official "porcelain". There's a lot of arguments that still seem to think of the git CLI before a lot of the porcelain projects started merging into git upstream. There's a lot of people that mostly only learned the plumbing tools and don't care for the porcelain projects. It certainly doesn't help that much of the best porcelain still isn't the default experience. You have to remember `git rebase -i` for the best porcelain rebase experience. You have to remember `git add -p` for the best porcelain add experience. (This article even indirectly hints at the silliness that the best interactive `git add` is `-p` for "pinteractive" because `-i` "interactive" was already taken by a weaker one.) That said, a lot of the porcelain is there today to take advantage of. Git has improved significantly from its plumbing-first worst CLIs. `git checkout` finally got split into `git switch` and `git restore` and both of those are great. (And no longer marked "experimental", they are official daily-use approved porcelain now.) That's also sort of the highlight of this post that a lot of the porcelain continues to improve. The UX of the git CLI isn't etched in stone. New, better commands are possible, and indeed are getting built by smart people, some of who even care about UX for themselves and their fellow developers. Git is no longer the rush project it once was. Git no longer sees itself as "plumbing-first" at the expense of the "porcelain". It will just maybe take a while for more of the elephants to forget the past horror stories and befuddlement.

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wakawaka28 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>It's very widely remarked that the Git CLI is pretty miserable, and as soon as a better (so I hear) alternative comes along they suddenly realise and start improving it... This happens all the time in software.

I don't think these claims have merit, for the most part. More often than not, people just don't take any time to learn git, then get on a soapbox about it.

If you think these commands are worthwhile, by all means use them. I happen to think git rebase is all you need. Giving people crutches to avoid using it just delays their enlightenment. But not everyone reaches enlightenment, it's true.

I don't think jj adds anything compelling over git either. But different strokes for different folks...