Git is fucking terrible as a mainstream source control system.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great power tool for Linus to manage the kernel code with. And it's super useful when automated or in some other niche use cases.
But for a simple user who wants to put some files in a magic box and have the same files (or older versions of them, even) come out later? Its commands are arcane, it's disturbingly fragile, errors that can occur are obscure and sometimes silent so they can remain undetected for months, and error messages are either opaque or misleading.
Overall the whole thing requires a deep understanding of the underlying system in order to really use it properly. Maybe that's OK for an in-house tool (which, as I understand it, is really what git is) but not for a default tool for everyone.
1 comment
2 u/tame 29 Jul 2016 17:00
OK, I'm just gonna come out and say it.
Git is fucking terrible as a mainstream source control system.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great power tool for Linus to manage the kernel code with. And it's super useful when automated or in some other niche use cases.
But for a simple user who wants to put some files in a magic box and have the same files (or older versions of them, even) come out later? Its commands are arcane, it's disturbingly fragile, errors that can occur are obscure and sometimes silent so they can remain undetected for months, and error messages are either opaque or misleading.
Overall the whole thing requires a deep understanding of the underlying system in order to really use it properly. Maybe that's OK for an in-house tool (which, as I understand it, is really what git is) but not for a default tool for everyone.