I am always doubtful when people say that accessing information inside git is hard. I totally agree that defaults in git can be improved (and they are, git restore and git switch are a much better alternative to git checkout that I no longer use). So let’s review the section “A Few Reasons Why SQLite Does Not Use Git”:
Make it an alias if you use it often. Alias is what helps you create your own good default (until everyone uses the same alias and in that case it should be part of the base set of commands).
“Git makes it difficult to find successors (descendants) of a check-in”
Likewise you could consider making it an alias if you use it often. Aliases can also be used as a post-it to help you remember what are the command that you find useful but you only use once in a blue moon!
The mental model for Git is needlessly complex
I may agree about that one. For reference, this is what the article says:
A user of Git needs to keep all of the following in mind:
The working directory
The “index” or staging area
The local head
The local copy of the remote head
The actual remote head
If git fetch was run automatically every so often, as well as git push (of course in a personal branch), then this model could be simplified as
the working directory
the “index” or staging area (I actually think that being able to have more than one for drafting multiples commit at once, like a fix and a feature at the same time would be better than only having a single index)
your working copy of the shared branch
the shared branch
And integrating your changes (merging/rebasing) should probably be exclusively done using a PR-like mechanism.
Git does not track historical branch names
I’m skeptical about the usefulness of this. But since git was my first real vcs (10 years ago), it may just be that I have not used a workflow that took advantaged of persistant branches. I assume that git annotate could be a solution here.
Git requires more administrative support
most developers use a third-party service such as GitHub or GitLab, and thus introduce additional dependencies.
That’s absolutely true but I’m not sure it’s a real issue. Given how many strategies there are for CI/CD (and none is the definitive winner yet) I do think that being able to select the right option for you/your team/your org is probably a good idea.
I highly disagree about that xkcd comics. Git is compatible will all workflows so you have to use a subset of all the commands. Of course you will have more commands that you never use if a software is usable for all the workflow that you don’t use. But you need about 15 commands to do stuff, 30 to be fluent, and some more to be able to help anyone. Compared to any other complex software that I use I really don’t think that it’s an unreasonably high count. That being said I totally agree that git from 10+ years ago was more complex and we should correctly teach what is needed to junior. HTML/css/js is a nightmare of complexity but it doesn’t stop 15 years old kid with no mentoring to build cool stuff because you don’t need to know everything to be able to do most of the things you may think of, just a good minimal set of tools. And people should definitively take the time to learn git, and stop using outdated guide. Anything that don’t use git switch, git restore and git rebase --interactive and presents you have to inspect the history in length (git log--graph or any graphical interface that show the history in a graph, git show, and more generally than you can filter the history in any way you want, being by author, date, folder, file type, …) is definitively not a good guide.
To sum-up, I think that from this presentation fossil seems more opinionated than git which means that it will be simpler as long as your workflow exactly matches the expected workflow whereas using git requires to curate its list of commands to select only the one useful for yours.
@mac Related: Why the SQLite team uses Fossil instead of Git https://sqlite.org/whynotgit.html
Thanks
I am always doubtful when people say that accessing information inside git is hard. I totally agree that defaults in git can be improved (and they are,
git restoreandgit switchare a much better alternative togit checkoutthat I no longer use). So let’s review the section “A Few Reasons Why SQLite Does Not Use Git”:git log --graph --oneline --author-date-order --since=1weekMake it an alias if you use it often. Alias is what helps you create your own good default (until everyone uses the same alias and in that case it should be part of the base set of commands).
git log --graph --oneline --all --ancestry-path ${commit}~..Likewise you could consider making it an alias if you use it often. Aliases can also be used as a post-it to help you remember what are the command that you find useful but you only use once in a blue moon!
I may agree about that one. For reference, this is what the article says:
If
git fetchwas run automatically every so often, as well asgit push(of course in a personal branch), then this model could be simplified asAnd integrating your changes (merging/rebasing) should probably be exclusively done using a PR-like mechanism.
I’m skeptical about the usefulness of this. But since git was my first real vcs (10 years ago), it may just be that I have not used a workflow that took advantaged of persistant branches. I assume that
git annotatecould be a solution here.That’s absolutely true but I’m not sure it’s a real issue. Given how many strategies there are for CI/CD (and none is the definitive winner yet) I do think that being able to select the right option for you/your team/your org is probably a good idea.
I highly disagree about that xkcd comics. Git is compatible will all workflows so you have to use a subset of all the commands. Of course you will have more commands that you never use if a software is usable for all the workflow that you don’t use. But you need about 15 commands to do stuff, 30 to be fluent, and some more to be able to help anyone. Compared to any other complex software that I use I really don’t think that it’s an unreasonably high count. That being said I totally agree that git from 10+ years ago was more complex and we should correctly teach what is needed to junior. HTML/css/js is a nightmare of complexity but it doesn’t stop 15 years old kid with no mentoring to build cool stuff because you don’t need to know everything to be able to do most of the things you may think of, just a good minimal set of tools. And people should definitively take the time to learn git, and stop using outdated guide. Anything that don’t use
git switch,git restoreandgit rebase --interactiveand presents you have to inspect the history in length (git log --graphor any graphical interface that show the history in a graph,git show, and more generally than you can filter the history in any way you want, being by author, date, folder, file type, …) is definitively not a good guide.To sum-up, I think that from this presentation fossil seems more opinionated than git which means that it will be simpler as long as your workflow exactly matches the expected workflow whereas using git requires to curate its list of commands to select only the one useful for yours.