From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Pierre Habouzit Subject: Re: If you would write git from scratch now, what would you change? Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:23:14 +0100 Message-ID: <20071125222314.GC21121@artemis.corp> References: <200711252248.27904.jnareb@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="Izn7cH1Com+I3R9J"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=SHA1 Cc: git@vger.kernel.org To: Jakub Narebski X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sun Nov 25 23:23:42 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1IwPt6-0006BG-Cv for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:23:40 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756336AbXKYWXS (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:23:18 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1755109AbXKYWXS (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:23:18 -0500 Received: from pan.madism.org ([88.191.52.104]:55882 "EHLO hermes.madism.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753191AbXKYWXR (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:23:17 -0500 Received: from madism.org (olympe.madism.org [82.243.245.108]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "artemis.madism.org", Issuer "madism.org" (not verified)) by hermes.madism.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D0AC72C2F7; Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:23:15 +0100 (CET) Received: by madism.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 01D69C4EB; Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:23:14 +0100 (CET) Mail-Followup-To: Pierre Habouzit , Jakub Narebski , git@vger.kernel.org Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200711252248.27904.jnareb@gmail.com> X-Face: $(^e[V4D-[`f2EmMGz@fgWK!e.B~2g.{08lKPU(nc1J~z\4B>*JEVq:E]7G-\6$Ycr4<;Z!|VY6Grt]+RsS$IMV)f>2)M="tY:ZPcU;&%it2D81X^kNya0=L]"vZmLP+UmKhgq+u*\.dJ8G!N&=EvlD User-Agent: Madmutt/devel (Linux) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: --Izn7cH1Com+I3R9J Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 09:48:27PM +0000, Jakub Narebski wrote: > If you would write git from scratch now, from the beginning, without=20 > concerns for backwards compatibility, what would you change, or what=20 > would you want to have changed? * reset/checkout/revert. The commands to wonderful things, but this UI is a mess for the newcomer. * pull/fetch/push: I would have had pull being what fetch is, and added some --merge option to actually "do the obvious merge". But pull encourage "bad" behavior from the user, and confuses newcomers a lot. * I would have hidden plumbing more, using a really distinguished namespace (stupid example, there are probably better ways, but we could have git-_rev-parse or git-plumbing-rev-parse instead of git-rev-parse) so that it's clear to the user that those are really internal commands, and that he doesn't need to understand them. This is a big issue with git: the list of commands of git is the top of the iceberg from the UI point of view. People _feel_ they are comfortable with a tool if they get say 75% of the UI. I don't say it's true that understanding 75% of the UI makes you a $tool expert, but it's how people feel it. With git, 75% of the commands (and don't get me started with the options ;P) is a _lot_. bzr is way better at that game: there are at least as many commands, but those are completely hidden to the user. Of course having our guts easy to grok and find is a big advantage for the git gurus. But for the newcomer it's a disconcerting. There is probably more things I'd change, but those were the first UI rumblings from me :) --=20 =C2=B7O=C2=B7 Pierre Habouzit =C2=B7=C2=B7O madcoder@debia= n.org OOO http://www.madism.org --Izn7cH1Com+I3R9J Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBHSfXSvGr7W6HudhwRAkZIAJsHDujC9frweHddZodrt6XXDLGYbwCeI1Sn 8HOHM65ZmQLeXmGJm3AsDeY= =QyTi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Izn7cH1Com+I3R9J--