Comment by nice_byte

Comment by nice_byte 20 hours ago

the only good git GUI that exists is Fork. Unfortunately, it doesn't run natively on Linux, although some people have had luck running it under Wine.

I found lazygit specifically so bad to the point that I was better off typing in git commands into the terminal manually like some sort of caveman. Somehow, lazygit has found a way to make git even more confusing and user hostile than it already is, which is a significant achievement.

Using it was a harsh reminder of what people running emacs or vim for the first time have to go through.

This idiotic ui paradigm where you have to actively learn to use what should be simple software by memorizing commands and shortcuts needs to die off. It's mind bogglingly inefficient and disrespectful of user's time.

Just think about it - I've literally never had to open Fork's manual (I am not even sure it has one) whereas in lazygit it is utterly impossible to do the most basic things without referring to the manual. Why do we collectively keep tolerating these shitty tools?

oneeyedpigeon 2 hours ago

Wow, $60! It had better be really, really good for that price.

I managed to get on fine with lazygit during a quick trial this morning. It actually doesn't have a manual (`man lazygit`: `No manual entry for lazygit`) but I found the contextual help (e.g. press ?) useful.

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CamJN 18 hours ago

Tower is also very good. Probably just due to having used it more, I prefer it over Fork, but I can get by if I have to use a computer not licensed for Tower.

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WolfeReader 19 hours ago

As much as I heartily disagree with most of what you wrote - and seeing all the downvotes, I'm not the only one - there is a nugget of truth in what you wrote, which answers a lot of your complaints.

"Using it was a harsh reminder of what people running emacs or vim for the first time have to go through."

The benefit of keyboard-driven programs like Vim is that you're trading an initial learning curve for a vastly more efficient experience once the learning is done+.

Mouse-driven tools like VS Code don't demand that the user learns them. Keyboard shortcuts there are optional, since practically everything is in a menu or a UI that can be moused to. This adds on seconds per interaction, adding up quickly over time.

+And the "learning" for these tools can be shortened dramatically by keeping a printed-out cheatsheet. For Vim this can be a huge lifesaver; I made one for magit as well, back before I switched full-time to JJ.

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oneeyedpigeon 2 hours ago

> Mouse-driven tools like VS Code don't demand that the user learns them.
Honestly, I found the barrier to entry way lower with lazygit than with vscode.
I realise I'm not adding anything useful to this discussion. I tried to start VSCode so that I could evaluate it and, maybe, add some info. as to why I find it more difficult to get into, but it just crashes now :shrug:

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krapht 18 hours ago

> The benefit of keyboard-driven programs like Vim is that you're trading an initial learning curve for a vastly more efficient experience once the learning is done+.
I have never been rate-limited by my keyboard input speed. I have lost many minutes of time daily looking up cheatsheets for terminal tools that I use occasionally.
Ironically, when I see what impact AI has had on my programming, the biggest has been in saving me time crafting command line invocations instead of browsing <tool> --help and man <tool>.

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- 1718627440 17 hours ago
  
  The speed change you see is not due to raw input speed, but do to eliminating a context switch in the brain. I thinking I want to see X and already seeing it on the screen.
  
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nice_byte 18 hours ago

> The benefit of keyboard-driven programs like Vim is that you're trading an initial learning curve for a vastly more efficient experience once the learning is done+.
This is simply not true and I say this as a life long vim user. The only reason I have vim mode enabled in all the editors that support it, is the fact that it's immensely difficult to retrain muscle memory accumulated from a decade+ time sunk in that editor. Nothing about vim or any of these other tools being keyboard driven, make me more productive in a way that matters.
> Mouse-driven tools like VS Code don't demand that the user learns them.
Good. That's how all software should be. It's a means to an end, not the center of the universe. The whole reason for bringing a UI layer into all of this in the first place is freeing up my brain from having to deal with git's bullshit.
> Keyboard shortcuts there are optional, since practically everything is in a menu or a UI that can be moused to.
The shortcuts are still there if you care to learn them - it should absolutely not be a prerequisite.
> +And the "learning" for these tools can be shortened dramatically by keeping a printed-out cheatsheet.
Or, I could use some actually well designed software and save myself some printer ink :-)

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- mbork_pl 6 hours ago
  
  > Or, I could use some actually well designed software and save myself some printer ink :-)
  Or, you could use some well-designed and self-documenting software. Too bad there's not much of that besides Emacs - on the other hand, Emacs and occasionally a browser cover most of my computering needs...
  
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