[ddevault]

But your suggestion relies on them knowing what "branches" are - an equally tenuous proposition for a new programmer, I think. Recall that at one point, you didn't know how to use GitHub, either. Pull requests? Cloning? What do these words mean, out of context? New users on GitHub struggle a lot, too, something I know from firsthand experience dealing with new programmers on my GitHub projects all the time.

I would prefer to solve these problems by fostering a culture of mentorship, and being responsive to questions. This is what I do on GitHub, too.

[mikekchar]

Just to support your philosophy a little bit, most git users are very surprised to learn that a "branch" is a single commit. When they need to do something where this distinction matters, in my experience they are usually stymied. Using a precise model where it doesn't sweep the details under the carpet is good for me. However, I suspect that it will limit adoption to a certain extent. Pretending that something is the way you wish it to be is pretty common in the world ;-) Refusing to use tools that show you truths that you do not wish to acknowledge is similarly common, I think. Still I appreciate the precision and if you are targeting users like me, I certainly won't complain!

[umvi]

A branch is more accurately a text pointer pointing to a single commit

[TeMPOraL]

And this is a crucial point. To understand git, you need to understand data structures strung from pointers. Branch then being a [pointer to a] single commit makes perfect sense, just like a linked list being a pointer to the first element makes perfect sense.

[rswail]

You could even call it a "reference", or a "ref" for short :)

[pcr910303]

I agree with that PRs are a foreign concept — but branchs and cloning is text that almost always appear on introductory git tutorials which make them friendlier than the other terms.

I actually just realized that if SourceHut has a site (like git-send-email.io) that explains git that uses the terms ‘ref’ and etc... (so that a git newcomer can build a proper fit mental model), this problem goes away. Not sure if explaining it easily would be possible though.

[mb7733]

I agree with all of this and it's worth pointing out that unlike "ref" which some posters are claiming is too obscure, "pull request" is not even a term within git itself.

As someone who was quite familiar with git before using GitHub, GH's use of that term was the only confusing thing. (It is only not a request for others to `pull` your branch to inspect the changes, it's also a request to merge it into some other branch.)

A term like "ref" is at least part of the standard git terminology, and used in important commands that everyone should know like "reflog".

[toohotatopic]

Thank you for that attitude.