From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Lang Subject: Re: An interesting opinion on DVCS/git Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2015 16:53:34 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: References: <54F2CD12.8050609@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="680960-1130144495-1425430414=:26501" Cc: Stefan Beller , "git@vger.kernel.org" To: Shawn Pearce X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Mar 04 01:53:44 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YSxZH-0005Ru-Rc for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Wed, 04 Mar 2015 01:53:44 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756989AbbCDAxi (ORCPT ); Tue, 3 Mar 2015 19:53:38 -0500 Received: from mail.lang.hm ([64.81.33.126]:59739 "EHLO bifrost.lang.hm" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756337AbbCDAxh (ORCPT ); Tue, 3 Mar 2015 19:53:37 -0500 Received: from asgard.lang.hm (asgard.lang.hm [10.0.0.100]) by bifrost.lang.hm (8.13.4/8.13.4/Debian-3) with ESMTP id t240rY65004057; Tue, 3 Mar 2015 16:53:34 -0800 X-X-Sender: dlang@asgard.lang.hm In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Alpine 2.02 (DEB 1266 2009-07-14) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. --680960-1130144495-1425430414=:26501 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT On Tue, 3 Mar 2015, Shawn Pearce wrote: > On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 7:29 PM, Stefan Beller wrote: >> bitquabit.com/post/unorthodocs-abandon-your-dvcs-and-return-to-sanity > > Indeed, a DVCS like Git or Hg does not fit everyone. And neither do > centralized systems like Subversion. Choice is good. > > However... I found some passages troubling for Git, e.g.: > > ---snip--- > Git is so amazingly simple to use that APress, a single publisher, > needs to have three different books on how to use it. It’s so simple > that Atlassian and GitHub both felt a need to write their own online > tutorials to try to clarify the main Git tutorial on the actual Git > website. It’s so transparent that developers routinely tell me that > the easiest way to learn Git is to start with its file formats and > work up to the commands. > ---snap--- > > We have heard this sort of feedback for years. But we have been unable > to adequately write our own documentation or clean up our man pages to > be useful to the average person who doesn't know why the --no-frobbing > option doesn't disable the --frobinator option to the > --frobbing-subcommand of git frob. :( > > http://git-man-page-generator.lokaltog.net/ shouldn't exist and > shouldn't be funny. Yet it does. :( As for the different online tutorials, I'll point out that every university that supports it's students using Thunderbird has it's own version of a tutorial on how to use and configure Thunderbird. The question is if they are coverying their one use case of how to use git with their service, or if they are trying to duplicate the git documentation. There are two reasons for having multiple books out for a piece of software 1. the software is horribly complicated to use, even for beginners 2. the software is extremely powerful, to to understand all the different advanced options, and when to use them, takes a lot of explination In the case of git, there's a bit of both. Part of the problem is that there are so many different ways to use it (all in common use) that there isn't one simple set of insructions that will be right in all the different use cases (thus the value of services that force users to operate in one specific model providing a tutorial in how to use it with their service) At this point, Internet Lore says "git is hard to use", and if you approach any software with that attitude, you will find lots of things to point at to justify your opinion. I'm not saying that there isn't room for improvement, I'm just saying that the evidence provided is not as one-sided as they make it sound. David Lang --680960-1130144495-1425430414=:26501--