From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Nick Andrew Subject: Re: [PATCH] Simplified GIT usage guide Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:05:05 +1100 Message-ID: <20081213230504.GA21912@mail.local.tull.net> References: <20081212182827.28408.40963.stgit@warthog.procyon.org.uk> <29095.1229109133@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Johannes Schindelin , torvalds@osdl.org, git@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Miklos Vajna To: David Howells X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sun Dec 14 00:06:38 2008 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 1LBdZE-0002PY-SJ for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:06:37 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752065AbYLMXFK (ORCPT ); Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:05:10 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752057AbYLMXFK (ORCPT ); Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:05:10 -0500 Received: from vps1.tull.net ([66.180.172.116]:59636 "HELO vps1.tull.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1751884AbYLMXFJ (ORCPT ); Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:05:09 -0500 Received: (qmail 1481 invoked by uid 1015); 14 Dec 2008 10:05:08 +1100 Received: from [10.0.0.67] (HELO tull.net) (10.0.0.67) by vps1.tull.net (qpsmtpd/0.26) with SMTP; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:05:08 +1100 Received: (qmail 22335 invoked by uid 1000); 14 Dec 2008 10:05:05 +1100 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <29095.1229109133@redhat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-SMTPD: qpsmtpd/0.26, http://develooper.com/code/qpsmtpd/ Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 07:12:13PM +0000, David Howells wrote: > Johannes Schindelin wrote: > > So I think that your document might do a good job scaring people away from > > Git. But I do not believe that your document, especially in the tone it > > is written, does a good job of helping Git newbies. > > Hmmm. So what would you suggest is a good way to write for GIT newbies? Is > it just that the overview should be canned or drastically simplified? The way I did it was to start with the directed acyclic graph of commits, explaining how branches fork the graph and merges join it. This was presented to people who know subversion, and so they immediately became aware that there are other ways to manage source code than in a linear r1 r2 r3 r4 r5. I described tags and branch heads briefly. Next up I described the things you'd do with git: add new commits, create a branch, merge a branch, rebase, tag, push and fetch and showed what that does with the dag of commits. Finally I showed the actual commands used to perform those actions. I didn't get into the object database structure at all (that was prepared in case I had extra time). I think a tutorial shouldn't be written in a way that polarises peoples' opinions or they come to regard git as a "necessary evil". If the audience is a person who knows nothing about git, that's hardly a "git hater" and I think the document starts off on the wrong foot as a result. Nick.