From: Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>
To: Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail.com>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:19:44 +0200 (CEST) [thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0807170105280.4318@eeepc-johanness> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20080716214849.GF2925@dpotapov.dyndns.org>
Hi,
On Thu, 17 Jul 2008, Dmitry Potapov wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 06:21:02PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> >
> > I had the pleasure of introducing Git to a few users in the last
> > months and in my opinion, restricting myself to teaching them these
> > commands first helped tremendously:
> >
> > - clone, pull, status, add, commit, push, log
>
> Yes, it is a good list, and I think it is very important at the
> beginning to limit the number commands to 7-8, otherwise many users may
> be confused. And, of course, it is better to stay away from all
> command-line options at first...
Thanks.
> > All of these were presented without options, to keep things simple.
> >
> > In particular, I refrained from giving them the "-a" option to commit.
> > That seemed to help incredibly with their embracing the index as a
> > natural concept (which it is).
>
> Most things that we call as "natural" is those that we got used.
In this case, I have to add that it is natural because it is the way you
_have_ to do it. Even if the other SCMs hide it.
You almost never commit a full revision. You usually update just a couple
of files. Now, even CVS has an extra command to add a file, so it accepts
the fact that staging and committing are two different operations, even if
"cvs add" does not stage the changes of a tracked file.
Of course, it is easier for us: we can use all the lessons learnt from
CVS.
> > Now, it makes me really, really sad that Git has a reputation of being
> > complicated, but I regularly hear from _my_ users that they do not
> > understand how that came about.
>
> I think this reputation is largely due to people who open Git user
> manual, read about >100 commands, were horrified and stopped learning.
Heh. I catually would be delighted if one outcome of this discussion
would be that the user manual starts with a nice big chapter describing
just my first set of commands, without options.
Another nice outcome could be if all the plumbing man pages were moved
into a different section, and all the porcelain's man pages would be
changed to avoid referring to plumbing.
It could be a good idea, too, to explain advanced topics not by command,
but by scenario.
> > Am I the only one who deems teaching plumbing to users ("I like it
> > raw! So I teach it the same way!") harmful?
>
> There is only one thing that seems to be true about teaching Git (or
> anything else) -- there is no single method that works equally well
> for anyone.
I disagree. I think that the first steps are the same for everyone.
Ciao,
Dscho
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2008-07-16 23:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 114+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2008-07-16 17:21 Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-16 17:50 ` Jesper Eskilson
2008-07-16 18:14 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-16 18:19 ` Jesper Eskilson
2008-07-16 18:27 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-16 17:53 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-07-16 18:12 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-16 18:35 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-07-16 20:13 ` Theodore Tso
2008-07-16 21:53 ` Daniel Barkalow
2008-07-17 11:18 ` David Kastrup
2008-07-17 15:52 ` Jakub Narebski
2008-07-17 16:05 ` David Kastrup
2008-07-17 16:18 ` Subversion's do-everything-via-copying paradigm ( was RE: Re: Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful) Craig L. Ching
2008-07-17 21:05 ` David Kastrup
2008-07-17 22:06 ` Craig L. Ching
2008-07-17 22:07 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-07-17 22:11 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-17 20:04 ` Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful Jakub Narebski
2008-07-17 20:12 ` Kevin Ballard
2008-07-17 20:26 ` Petr Baudis
2008-07-17 20:40 ` Kevin Ballard
2008-07-17 21:03 ` Jakub Narebski
2008-07-17 21:10 ` Kevin Ballard
2008-07-17 20:34 ` Jakub Narebski
2008-07-17 20:42 ` Kevin Ballard
2008-07-17 20:15 ` Kevin Ballard
2008-07-17 21:02 ` David Kastrup
2008-07-17 22:32 ` Robin Rosenberg
2008-07-18 7:41 ` Dmitry Potapov
2008-07-17 16:11 ` Subversion is actually not so simple (was RE: Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful) Craig L. Ching
2008-07-17 17:37 ` Jakub Narebski
2008-07-17 19:00 ` Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful Daniel Barkalow
2008-07-16 18:18 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-16 18:51 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-07-16 18:59 ` Petr Baudis
2008-07-16 19:22 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-07-16 19:09 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-16 19:29 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-07-16 19:34 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-16 19:46 ` Avery Pennarun
2008-07-16 20:12 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-16 22:32 ` Theodore Tso
2008-07-16 22:41 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-16 22:53 ` Sean Kelley
2008-07-16 23:17 ` Nigel Magnay
2008-07-17 3:21 ` Stephen Sinclair
2008-07-18 17:02 ` Ping Yin
2008-07-16 22:24 ` Dmitry Potapov
2008-07-16 22:28 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-16 22:49 ` Theodore Tso
2008-07-17 0:25 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-17 2:47 ` Theodore Tso
2008-07-17 14:21 ` Craig L. Ching
2008-07-17 14:51 ` Petr Baudis
2008-07-17 15:57 ` J. Bruce Fields
2008-07-16 21:16 ` david
2008-07-16 21:59 ` Dmitry Potapov
2008-07-16 20:23 ` Stephen R. van den Berg
2008-07-16 20:27 ` Nicolas Pitre
2008-07-16 20:51 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-16 23:05 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-16 23:40 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-17 0:02 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-17 6:53 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-17 15:55 ` J. Bruce Fields
2008-07-17 16:03 ` Karl Hasselström
2008-07-17 18:16 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-17 18:29 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-17 18:43 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-17 19:10 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-18 14:35 ` J. Bruce Fields
2008-07-18 9:55 ` Addremove equivalent [was: Re: Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful] Michael J Gruber
2008-07-18 20:18 ` Jay Soffian
2008-07-18 23:03 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-20 3:27 ` Addremove equivalent Junio C Hamano
2008-07-20 3:28 ` [PATCH 1/2] builtin-add.c: restructure the code for maintainability Junio C Hamano
2008-07-20 3:29 ` [PATCH 2/2] git-add -a: add all files Junio C Hamano
2008-07-20 3:32 ` [PATCH 3/2] git-add -a: tests Junio C Hamano
2008-07-20 4:20 ` [PATCH 2/2] git-add -a: add all files Tarmigan
2008-07-20 4:28 ` Tarmigan
2008-07-20 10:56 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-20 12:45 ` Jay Soffian
2008-07-20 18:30 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-20 20:46 ` Lars Noschinski
2008-07-20 23:59 ` Jeff King
2008-07-21 0:06 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-21 0:17 ` Jeff King
2008-07-21 0:22 ` Jeff King
2008-07-21 2:11 ` Jay Soffian
2008-07-20 20:34 ` Sverre Rabbelier
2008-07-16 21:48 ` Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful Dmitry Potapov
2008-07-16 23:19 ` Johannes Schindelin [this message]
2008-07-16 22:09 ` Stephan Beyer
2008-07-16 23:22 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-17 1:01 ` Stephan Beyer
2008-07-17 7:30 ` "Peter Valdemar Mørch (Lists)"
2008-07-17 12:38 ` Dmitry Potapov
2008-07-17 12:55 ` Theodore Tso
2008-07-17 13:35 ` Peter Valdemar Mørch
2008-07-17 14:26 ` Theodore Tso
2008-07-17 16:38 ` Junio C Hamano
2008-07-18 8:19 ` Andreas Ericsson
2008-07-18 18:26 ` Jeff King
2008-07-18 10:14 ` Suggestion: doc restructuring [was: Re: Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful] Michael J Gruber
2008-07-18 18:26 ` Jon Loeliger
2008-07-18 18:52 ` Craig L. Ching
2008-07-18 19:50 ` Suggestion: doc restructuring Junio C Hamano
2008-07-19 1:19 ` Suggestion: doc restructuring [was: Re: Considering teaching plumbing to users harmful] Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-20 8:14 ` Suggestion: doc restructuring Junio C Hamano
2008-07-20 11:02 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-21 6:41 ` Andreas Ericsson
2008-07-21 10:04 ` Johannes Schindelin
2008-07-21 16:22 ` Junio C Hamano
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