Git VS git-branchless

Boy, I can't find this either (but also, the kernel mailing list is _really_ difficult to search). I really remember Linus saying something like "it's not a real SCM, but maybe someone could build one on top of it someday" or something like that, but I cannot figure out how to find that.

You _can_ see, though, that in his first README, he refers to what he's building as not a "real SCM":

https://github.com/git/git/commit/e83c5163316f89bfbde7d9ab23...

Here is the direct link, as HN somehow removes the query string: https://github.com/git/git/commits?author=peff&since=2023-10...

I understand all that.

I'm saying, if you write a survey and one of the possible answers is "diff", but you don't clearly define what you mean by "diff", then don't be surprised if respondents use any reasonable definition that makes sense to them. Ask an ambiguous question, get a mishmash of answers.

The thing that Git uses for packfiles is called a "delta" by Git, but it's also reasonable to call it a "diff". After all, Git's delta algorithm is "greatly inspired by parts of LibXDiff from Davide Libenzi"[1]. Not LibXDelta but LibXDiff.

Yes, how Git stores blobs (using deltas) is orthogonal to how Git uses blobs. But while that orthogonality is useful for reasoning about Git, it's not wrong to think of a commit as the totality of what Git does, including that optimization. (Some people, when learning Git, stumble over the way it's described as storing full copies, think it's wasteful. For them to wrap their heads around Git, they have to understand that the optimization exists. Which makes sense because Git probably wouldn't be practical if it lacked that optimization.)

The reason I'm bringing all this up is, if you're trying to explain Git, which is what the original article is about, then it's very important to keep in mind that someone who is learning Git needs to know what you mean when you say "diff". Most people who already know Git would tend to gravitate toward the definition of "diff" that you're assuming (the thing that Git computes on the fly and never stores), but people who already know Git aren't the target audience when you're teaching Git.

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[1] https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/diff-delta.c

Didn't Git have a new default merge strategy, `ort` https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNote... ?

Yes, but you are referring to standalone scripts, not functions defined within a Bash script.

Compare for example the following helper code used for git command completion inside Bash and inside PowerShell.

Bash: https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/completion/gi...

Yes, but due to its simplicity + extensibility + widespread adoption, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re still using Git 100+ years from now.

The current trend (most popular and IMO likely to succeed) is to make tools (“layers”) which work on top of Git, like more intuitive UI/patterns (https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit, https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless) and smart merge resolvers (https://github.com/Symbolk/IntelliMerge, https://docs.plasticscm.com/semanticmerge/how-to-configure/s...). Git it so flexible, even things that it handles terribly by default, it handles

> Is this for a case where a bunch of people branch from master@HEAD (lets call this A), then you need to modify A, so you then need to rebase each branch that branched from A individually?

Mainly it's for when you branch from A multiple times, and then modify A. This can happen if you have some base work that you build multiple features on top of. I routinely do this as part of rapid prototyping, as described here: https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless/wiki/Workflow:-div...

`git undo` shows a list of operations it'll execute, which you have to confirm before accepting. Of course, it's ultimately a matter of trust in the tools you use.

What happens is you work somewhere that has stacked diffs and suddenly you learn how to shape your diffs to make them easy to review. Thinking of how folks will review your code in chunks while writing it makes it cleaner. Having small but easy to read diffs makes reviews faster and helps junior devs learn how to review.

Sometimes this doesn’t happen in which case you end up need to split your commit at the end. This is where git utterly fails. You end up needing git split and git absorb to make this productive.

Git split let’s you select which chunks in a commit should belong to it and then splits that into a commit and then you do it again and again until you have lots of commits. You’ll still need to probably test each one but the majority of the work is done

Git absorb takes changes on the top of your stack and magically finds which commit in your stack the each chunk should belong to and amends it to the right commit

You also need git branchless https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless as it lets you move up and down the stack without needing to remember so much git arcana.