this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Why not just use a gui? I don't need something hanging on my wall because it's all just easy clicking around. And when I do want to use the cli, it's very easy to bring up.
GUIs tend to only cover the common/basic usage. Which is easy to remember without a cheat sheet. When you need more advanced stuff then GUIs tend to become more of a sticking point I find. And with common workflows it is far easier to automate with the CLI then with a GUI.
Other than untracking tracked files, I see nothing in this graphic that isn't easy to do with a gui. That might even be easy to do but it is something I do in the cli. Can I get some examples?
I would also argue that the common/basic stuff is 99% of what I do with git. And for this I can't fathom why people would think the cli is better. Like logging and diffing is just so much easier when I can just scroll and click as opposed to having to do a log command, scroll, then remember the hashes, and then write the command. This is something instantly available to me in a gui.
Don't get me wrong, if the cli is better for you more power to you. We moved from p4 to git and I did this almost exclusively in the cli so I could use scripts more easily. And sometimes I watch beginners use the gui and I have to bite my tongue because I know it would be faster in the cli.
But, especially for a beginner, i strongly recommend a gui.
Click to view diffs is super ergonomic; on the other hand, I actually have a story about the Git CLI trumping the GUI (spoiler: reflog).
In high school we had gotten the funding to build a robot, and one of the adults in charge -- guy was brilliant -- was using GitHub Desktop to conduct a feature merge with the student who served as team lead. The thing was, he was used to older codebases, so all of his experience was with CVS instead of Git -- so when the two slightly messed up the git merge, they discussed recloning everything instead of wasting time plumbing the error (relevant xkcd).
That was one of the earliest times I had the cajones to walk up to a superior and say "No, you're doing this totally wrong. You don't have to do that."
He looked at me and nodded. "What would you do instead?"
"Reflog."
"Reflog? I've never heard of it before. Can you show us?"
I hopped onto the laptop and clicked around GitHub Desktop, but couldn't manage to find any buttons related to reflog... so I went straight to cmd.exe instead.
"Done. We can continue rebasing."
And after that, the advisor complimented me for using the command line tool!
"Lots of GUI apps are just limited frontends to the real meat and potatoes, the command line. Nice job!"
I felt like a wizard! And so I became the team's Git-inator.
edit: pruned story