this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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If you can't use git I don't see how you're gonna do with other things. It's dead simple.
Solving merge conflicts or rebasing is not simple
Do it enough times and it stops being scary.
Using a tool like VSCode to perform the actual merges on individual files also helps because it shows what "yours" and "theirs" changes are from a user perspective, not a git perspective
The 3-way merge editor in VSCode is a fantastic tool. Really helps in visualizing what comes from where and preventing merge accidents.
It's doable once you know what you're doing. I can do it all via the cli, but I personally use gitkraken most of the time and it's just so much easier and more ergonomic.
I also see a lot of the Devs who insist they know what they're doing create horrible messes of their branches super easily via the commit tree. People should just use whatever works best for them to get the job done.
It's not THAT complicated but I wouldn't call it dead simple. When you understand how git works internally yeah it's pretty simple but people usually start with the idea that it's a tool to put your code on a server to synchronize with other people and only later learn that you have both a local and a remote (or multiple remote) tree and how the tree really works.
I think the problem is most git 101 tutorials teach it wrong, IMO the best git tutorial is this: https://wildlyinaccurate.com/a-hackers-guide-to-git/
Unfortunately it's pretty dense so it's gonna scare off a lot of newbies.
If it was dead simple you wouldn't need to learn 10 new concepts and google commands regularly even after using it for a couple of years. You probably forgot how you struggled at first. I have taught it multiple times and I see how beginners struggle.
I would actually say it's VERY complicated but in daily work you probably need like 5 commands and those aren't hard at all.
It's definitely not simple to use but I agree that the conceptual model it represents is straightforward. I think a lot of the problems people have with git come from not understanding the underlying data structure before learning how to manipulate it.
Its not dead simple but its also not extremely complex.
I'm currently working with some interns and there's just concepts they were never exposed to. Without decent mentoring, git can be difficult because a lot of the workflow does come with experience.
That being said everyone needs to stop acting like its an impossible task to properly do source control. There is some truth that if you don't care enough to do your source control, you don't care enough to write decent code. Its not a moral failing, just take some pride in your craft.
Show the newbies how to care and they'll care enough to want to do it right. Measure twice, cut once and all that.