git-filter-repo VS magit

**WARNING**: git-filter-branch has a glut of gotchas generating mangled history rewrites. Hit Ctrl-C before proceeding to abort, then use an alternative filtering tool such as 'git filter-repo' (https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo/) instead. See the filter-branch manual page for more details; to squelch this warning, set FILTER_BRANCH_SQUELCH_WARNING=1. Proceeding with filter-branch... Rewrite a3a48b09e282854c80bf4ad02a017e249e161fd8 (2/8) (0 seconds passed, remaining 0 predicted) rm 'config.js' Rewrite 6e788e83a338e45b348d93d682b32c816ee2fbff (3/8) (0 seconds passed, remaining 0 predicted) rm 'config.js' Rewrite 7a378a0145bce70bea213ca5f9062138544db5f2 (4/8) (0 seconds passed, remaining 0 predicted) rm 'config.js' Rewrite 0637c9659623644cfceb35be10f2a1fe5c468e04 (5/8) (0 seconds passed, remaining 0 predicted) rm 'config.js' Rewrite 6c421eb99adc6b987cff7f3cada31e9313638072 (6/8) (0 seconds passed, remaining 0 predicted) rm 'config.js' Rewrite 98001e5b97270efa4a8ab5bd0452be56dd76883d (7/8) (0 seconds passed, remaining 0 predicted) rm 'config.js' Rewrite 2ca4e161a4af2b8f38c46faf848fdbb3e550f23c (8/8) (0 seconds passed, remaining 0 predicted) rm 'config.js' Ref 'refs/heads/secret_keys' was rewritten.

Yup you need https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo Take a look at https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo/blob/main/INSTALL.md for instructions

git filter-repo: a third-party command actually, as a replacement to Git's own filter-branch, that allows rewriting the whole history of a repository to remove a mistakenly added file, or help extract part of the repository to another.

I needed to archive some old repositories into a monorepo and of course I gave myself the requirement of maintaining git history, in some way. I tried a couple of solutions but it wasn't until I stumbled upon the git-filter-repo project at https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo and another article which I've since lost (which was badly documented anyway) that I was able to figure out how to do this.

Git objects are not designed to be changed, they are immutable blobs. This is not a problem if you are making a reader, but is a problem when you want to change things, tools like old git-filter-branch or the newer filter repo abstract all reference updating away for you

Make sure your gitignore is setup right (GitHub has a repo of good defaults). If you messed that up, you could rewrite git history to remove the big stuff. Use git-filter-repo. Not sure how that works for LFS.

git-filter-repo

Check out git filter repo https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo

I personally prefer git-bfg ( https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/ ) ... though git-filter-repo ( https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo ) is quite popular. The difference for me was that git-bfg is JVM based and my work machine has Java on it while git-filter-repo is python based... and my work machine is without python.

Then the slowness that you're seeing is probably Windows-specific, and that's why everyone else is telling you that Magit is actually fast.

WSL might make things faster.[1] IIUC, the problem is that starting new processes is much slower on Windows than on Linux/Unix and Magit relies heavily on that. This seems to have plagued Git tooling more generally but maybe this got fixed since then.[2]

[1] https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/58444

[2] https://github.com/magit/magit/issues/2395#issuecomment-1710...

You'll want to invest the time in learning Magit, which will change your life once you get the hang of it (and I was a heavy user of Fugitive in Vim previously!), and it's unlikely you'll find a better integration with GDB anywhere else on the planet than with Emacs, though I can't say that empirically. You just need to take the plunge and start learning it, then cut over and take the hit in productivity one day when you're feeling adventurous. You'll ultimately become far more powerful than you've ever been. Especially if you delve into elisp over time. I use Spacemacs, which is bloated and has bugs, but it has so many features that I haven't undertaken the massive endeavor to replace it from scratch yet.

> Even in this article just a few sentences after stating we should start from first principles he then jumps into the assumption of the "desktop".

Agree. Although I can see how the idea of "first principles" can be a very difficult starting point. A blank sheet of paper is a scary monster.

There's a huge breadth and depth of non-"desktop" GUIs out there, some (like smartphones) are even wildly successful. It's good to explore them for inspiration. Some of my favourites:

- Arcan (https://arcan-fe.com/about/) - I won't attempt to summarize, just dive in!

- SailfishOS (https://sailfishos.org/) - mobile UI focused on interaction through gestures / swipes; I've used it as my daily driver for a couple years.

- Speaking of mobiles, classic Nokia UIs allowed you to navigate to a specific item in the menu by pressing the corresponding digit on the dial pad. Once you learned where a particular item is, accessing e.g. your SMS inbox was extremely quick.

- Apple Watch / WatchOS (https://www.apple.com/watchos/) - I've always loved the idea of a device where one of the primary interaction methods was a wheel/dial of some sort. The watch even gives you context-sensitive tactile feedback.

- ZUIs in general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface) and the work of Jef Raskin in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy_(software) - this is the guy who helped design the Macintosh, but his other work took a radically different route.

- Magit (https://magit.vc/). Many common git operations are reduced to a couple of keystrokes; the obscure features are more discoverable, and the cumbersome procedures (such as rebasing, or staging individual hunks) become simple and intuitive. Also check out transient (https://github.com/magit/transient), which is the "UI toolkit" that powers Magit.

This can be done most comfortably with org-mode in emacs. It offers a lot of features, and they all operate on plain text. There are also nice integrations for git and languagetool, but I guess those are less exclusive.

How does this differ from https://magit.vc/ ?

I would rather see innovative tools that lessen our dependency on 50+ year old tech. This is still a glorified teletype. It uses AI to autosuggest git commands? Contrast with Magit[1], which (while it has a tiny bit of a learning curve, but also nowhere near 23M in funding) actually makes interacting with git a pleasure.

[1]: https://magit.vc

Also was using Emacs (org-mode)[https://orgmode.org] for years with (Magit)[https://magit.vc] package for git. I feel org-mod is a precursor to Roam Research, Obsidian, et al. Hit the spot for years but I wanted editing on mobile so that’s why I’m here. :)