I am not doing anything complex with it
So basic, well documented, easily understandable commands like git add
, git commit
, git push
, git branch
, and git checkout
should have you covered.
the CLI surface area that’s exposed to me is by and large nonsense and does not meet me where I’m at
What an interesting way to say “git has steep learning curve”. Which is true, git takes time to learn and even more to master. You can get there solely by reading the man pages and online docs though, which isn’t something a lot of other complex tools can say (looking at you kubernetes).
Also I don’t know if a package manager really compares in complexity to git, which is not just a version control tool, it’s also a thin interface for manipulating a directed acyclic graph.
So basic, well documented, easily understandable commands like git add, git commit, git push, git branch, and git checkout should have you covered.
You mean: git add -A
, git commit -m "xxx"
, git push
or git push -u origin --set-upstream
, etc. etc. etc. I get that there’s probably a reason for it’s complexity, but it doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t just have a steep learning curve, it’s flat out remarkably user unfriendly sometimes.
git add
with no arguments outputs a message telling you to specify a path.
git commit
with no arguments drops you into a text editor with instructions on how to write a commit message.
git push
with no arguments will literally print the git push --set-upstream
command you need to run if your branch has no upstream.
Again, I recognize that git has a steep learning curve, but you chose just about the worst possible examples to try and prove that point lol.
git add with no arguments outputs a message telling you to specify a path.
Yes, but a more sensible default would be -A since that is how most developers use it most of the time.
git commit with no arguments drops you into a text editor with instructions on how to write a commit message.
Git commit with no arguments drops you into vim, less a text editor and more a cruel joke of figuring out how to exit it.
Again, I recognize that git has a steep learning curve, but you chose just about the worst possible examples to try and prove that point lol.
Git has a steep learning curve not because it’s necessary but because it chose defaults that made sense to the person programming it, not to the developer using it and interacting with it.
It is great software and obviously better than most other version control systems, but it still has asinine defaults and it’s cli surface is over complicated. When I worked at a MAANG company and had to learn their proprietary version control system my first thought was “this is dumb, why wouldn’t you just use git like everyone else”, then I went back to Git and realized how much easier and more sensible their system was.