[andrewdea]

I'm having trouble understanding the value of this and most other supposed advantages of jj I'm seeing. I'm trying to pinpoint if it's because 1) my workflow doesn't need jj's fancy stuff, 2) I've gotten so used to `git`'s "flaws" that I don't notice them, or 3) the git porcelain I use (magit) does a good enough job at managing the flaws.

If you need to build on something that requires changes from 3 open PRs, can't you just start a new branch from main, merge all 3 PRs into it, and get to work? As changes are applied to the open PRs, you can rebase. Obviously that might cause some merge conflicts here and there, but as long as the PRs aren't super overlapping, they should still be manageable. If there's a ton of overlap between 3 open PRs, that to me sounds like a problem in the workflow/plan, which must be dealt with regardless of the VCS or porcelain.

[steveklabnik]

For me, it wasn't so much that jj enabled things I couldn't do before, though there are some things. What it enabled was me doing the things I was doing, but in a more easy way. This also leads you to do things that you can do, but sometimes avoid because it's a lot of work.

[andrewdea]

I guess that makes sense but also reinforces the confusion I have on whether jj is just another git "porcelain" (aka UI), or a replacement for git altogether.

If it aims to mainly improve the UX (do the same things you were doing before but easier), then it's irrelevant to those of us who have been lucky to find and learn sensible UXs. If it aims to be a git replacement, I'm a little curious why the developers would decide to re-implement something from scratch only to end up with an "alternative" that is mostly compatible and doesn't radically change the internal model or add new features.

I last used GitHub Desktop years ago and had a terrible time. The git CLI is powerful but not very intuitive. It really wasn't until I learned magit that things "clicked" for me. I know that many git UXs are pretty bad. But the way git works internally seems pretty great to me. Too often, criticism of git conflates the two.

[naasking]

> then it's irrelevant to those of us who have been lucky to find and learn sensible UXs

Only if you're a solo dev that doesn't work on a team or have to mentor new devs that haven't developed good intuitions for this.

This strikes me a lot like the C vs. safer programming language debate all over again.

[andrewdea]

When I mentor new devs, I explain to them how I use git. Sometimes I show them the workflow in magit, which makes it easier to visualize things. But mostly I just show them how their intended actions map onto the relevant CLI commands and I tell them to figure out how those map onto their porcelain of choice. I've developed this intuition thanks to magit, but I don't think magit is necessary. This approach seems preferable to me than onboarding new devs onto a new tool that is not the industry standard.

> This strikes me a lot like the C vs. safer programming language debate all over again.

I don't see how. Safer programming language address a clear problem in C, with trade-offs (sometimes arguably the trade-offs may not be worth it, and in my experience that's what the debate tends to be about). If jj is a replacement for git it should be clear what problem within git it aims at addressing. If the problem is in the UX, then to me and many others it's not worth the trouble.

[naasking]

> When I mentor new devs, I explain to them how I use git.

Now imagine not needing to do that.

> I don't see how. Safer programming language address a clear problem in C

Being productive in C means training and experience in avoiding the footguns of C. See above.

[steveklabnik]

Fundamentally, jj is its own VCS. It's just that it has pluggable backends. So when you use it with the git backend, it functions as a nicer git UI, but it's also not just that, because you can use it without git entirely. (though the major alternative backend is not open source, so while people do, unless you work at Google (or the startup I'm at...) you may personally not be able to.)

> then it's irrelevant to those of us who have been lucky to find and learn sensible UXs.

I was never someone who was upset at git's UX. I never found the 'hg is so much nicer' thing compelling. But then, I found that jj is just so much nicer to use, for me, that I haven't used git itself in years at this point. But it's also true that if you like using git, and want to keep using it, that's fine! The wonderful thing about the interop here is that I can use jj, and you can use git, and we're all good.

> I'm a little curious why the developers would decide to re-implement something from scratch only to end up with an "alternative" that is mostly compatible

Realistically, with git's dominance, compatibility is the only way that you get people to actually try out your thing. I know I wouldn't have given it a shot unless I could use it with a git repo.

> or add new features

I mean, there's two things here: one of which is, jj does have new features. I described the ability for a jj repo to exist in a conflicted state upthread, for example. jj undo is a godsend. But at the same time, at the end of the day, when you're trying to manipulate a graph of changes, there's always some way to end up in the same end state with git, because, well, you're trying to interoperate. So you can sort of handwave away a lot of features with a kind of "well I can do that in git via <totally different means>", and sure, that's true in a sense, but tools affect the way you work. I'm much more effective with jj's model of the world than I was with git's, even though I didn't actively feel that pain until I tried jj.

> It really wasn't until I learned magit

Ah, you use magit! So yeah, like, jj is like magit in the sense that it lets you interact with a git repository in a different way than the standard tool. And that's useful. I never would have used magit because I don't use emacs. (and there are some folks trying to do "magit but for jj"...)

> But the way git works internally seems pretty great to me. Too often, criticism of git conflates the two.

I agree, in general. I do think that there are still good criticisms to be made, but a lot of it is uninformed. Just how things go.

[skydhash]

> Ah, you use magit! So yeah, like, jj is like magit in the sense that it lets you interact with a git repository in a different way than the standard tool. And that's useful. I never would have used magit because I don't use emacs.

I also use magit and I was confused by the "advantages" that jj has over git. The nice thing about magit is that it doesn't hide git. What it does add is easier typing of the flags (using transient), completions of arguments like branch names (using Emacs), DWIM behavior depending on cursor position and region selection (especially for commit hashes). Also it has nice presentation of the information which acts like hubs for all the above.

I guest jj makes sense if you're using the cli directly. But with magit, every operation is only a few keystrokes. It is to git, what vim is to editing. And I could probably cobble something close with tig or lazygit if I switched from emacs.