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How much of this is for a noob like me that just uses vscode? I hardly ever see the git command line, and when I do see it, its trouble beyond what anybody can fix...


VSCode git interface is actually pretty powerful, 99.9% of the git actions I do are already covered there, including merging, stashing, tagging, getting output from the git hooks...

However changing the diff algorithm is still a nice one, both for solving conflicts and to avoid the ocassional bad automated merges (the latter is scarier as you don't even know you pushed something wrong).


I wouldn't like to be this kind of person, but, in the case of git, the best you can do you is forcing yourself little by little to use the Git CLI. It's far from being beginner friendly, but it shows the things the way the really are. GUI git tools hide things under their hood, which is ok for most cases but when you need a little more complex thing you are limited to their capabilities.

For instance, I wrote this post last year about how you can use Git as a powerful debugging tool: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39877637


Nothing wrong with a gui. Esp with git imo. The process doesn’t require blazing fast agility, but careful review and selection.

Graphical diff viewers are way better anyway.


Setting merge conflictstyle diff3 or zdiff3 will improve your experience if you ever do any merging


I just use kdiff3 - automatically solves most merge conflicts & it’s rarely to never done so incorrectly. And when it can’t resolve the merge conflicts, line alignment is very nice. I prefer it to the cluttered experience of BeyondCompare and other more “feature-filled” options.


Of course, there's an xkcd for that : https://xkcd.com/1597/


Should create an XKCD with “There is always n+1 Git client GUI”.

EVERY new employee arrives saying “Hey I’ve found this great UI for git, this one really nails it and makes git easy” and every time it’s a new Git UI that I’ve never heard of. It’s the “hello world” of startups: Creat their great git UI and publish it.

Then they commit with the default crappy commit messages and they don’t know how to git-rebase-i.


Maybe git is just too complicated for average users (myself included).


> Maybe git is just too complicated for average users (myself included).

Then use the vscode wrapper, or whatever you choose.

People complain that "git" is complicated when what is really happening is that they're looking at a revision management problem like a merge conflict or regression bisection, or having to split/refactor a giant blob of changes as demanded by an upstream project, etc...

Those tasks are complicated, necessarily. And git is a tool for doing them. But people tend to get confused about this and blame the tool and not the problem. But a better UI isn't going to make that split not suck.


Of course, you can also try GitButler (https://gitbutler.com), it's a pretty nice GUI :)




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