[haskellshill]

> all the experts you know use it in slightly different ways

What? Knowing that a git repo is just a folder is nowhere near "expert" level. That's basic knowledge, just like knowing that the commits are nodes of a DAG. Sadly, most git users have no idea how the tool works. It's a strange situation, it'd be like if a majority of drivers didn't know how to change gears.

[jancsika]

> It's a strange situation, it'd be like if a majority of drivers didn't know how to change gears.

If you literally can't change gears then your choices are a) go nowhere (neutral), b) burn out your clutch (higher gears), or c) burn out your engine (1st gear). All are bad things. Even having an expert come along to put you in the correct gear once, twice, or even ten times won't improve things.

If a programmer doesn't know that git is a folder or that the commits are nodes of a DAG, nothing bad will happen in the short term. And if they have a git expert who can get them unstuck say, five times total, they can probably make it to the end of their career without having to learn those two details of git.

In short-- bad analogy.

[haskellshill]

It's an analogy, there's no need to analyze it literally. And no, I've worked with some devs who don't understand git (thankfully I don't anymore) and it was quite a bit more than "five times" they got stuck or messed up the repo on the remote in an annoying way. Sure, if you regularly write code using a bunch of evals or gotos "nothing bad will happen" but it's a very suboptimal way of doing things.

[rco8786]

The majority of drivers DON’T know how to change gears.

You are simultaneously saying that something is not expert level knowledge while acknowledging that most people don’t know it. Strange.

[seba_dos1]

> The majority of drivers DON’T know how to change gears.

I'm not sure that's true, unless you only take certain parts of the world into consideration.

[haskellshill]

"Expert level knowledge" implies something more to me than simply few people knowing about it. It's ridiculous to say that knowing how to change gears makes you an expert driver, even if a minority know how to do it (such as in the US e.g.)

[singpolyma3]

I think the idea is it shouldn't be expert level. It used to be in every tutorial. But you're right these days it may indeed be expert level knowledge

[__MatrixMan__]

My point is only that the understanding is uneven. I'm ready to debate the merits of subtrees vs submodules but I didn't know the folder thing. Am I weird? Yes, but here is a place where weird is commonplace.

[throwaway2037]

    > just like knowing that the commits are nodes of a DAG

Hello gatekeeping! I have used Git for more than 10 years. I could not explain all of the ins-and-outs of commits, especially that they are "nodes of a DAG". I do just fine, and Git is wonderful to me. Another related example: I would say that 90%+ of .NET and Java users don't intimately understand their virtual machine that runs their code. Hot take: That is fine in 2025; they are still very productive and add lots of value.

[haskellshill]

"Intimately understand the VM" is not the same as knowing what data structure you're using. It'd be comparable to not knowing the difference between an array and a linked list. Sure you may call it gatekeeping but likewise I may call your style willful ignorance of the basics of the tools you're using. Have you never used rebase or cherry-pick?

[throwaway2037]

    > Have you never used rebase or cherry-pick?

Of course. And when I forget how to do it, I ask Google, or ChatGPT. It works for me.