That's not a bad idea, Konrad! And it certainly mimicks how *I* learned version control. =)
As a more general response to the whole thread, yes, the git interface is terrible, but I remember reading a while back that its excellent back-end is what won it. The idea is that front-ends can always be fixed, but your data storage better be rock solid and stable. Of course, instead of fixing the front end, we all ended up just getting used to it. I hope we all migrate soon to UIs built on top of git, such as gitless <http://gitless.com/>. But it's gonna be slow and painful, because of the huge momentum that git has. Juan. On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 6:51 PM, Konrad Hinsen <[email protected]> wrote: > On 29/02/2016 17:24, Greg Wilson wrote: > > The biggest thing I'm taking away from this blog post is that lousy >> interfaces and obscure failure modes really are inhibiting adoption of >> better computing practices. From the post: >> > ... > > I heard fewer complaints of this kind, and believe that I saw higher >> adoption rates, when we were teaching Subversion. I'm not going to >> recommend that we switch back, but I do miss it whenever I have to help >> someone deal with a detached head... >> > > Version control is probably a bit particular in that > > 1) The most popular tool is also the worst in terms of UI. > 2) The concepts need some time to understand, which is difficult when > teaching from zero do advanced level in two days without time for > practicing. > > When I teach version control in short courses, some students always end up > frustrated. I do hear comments such as "This is too complicated for me, I > will never learn it". > > I have had much better success introducing beginners to version control > very slowly. I start showing them the most basic commands to keep file > histories on their own machine. No branching, no collaboration. And I use > Mercurial. This has always led to success in the sense that people start to > use version control for their work. > > A few of those people later switched to Git in order to participate in > collaborations on GitHub. Most are still quitely using Mercurial on their > own machines. > > I suppose one could teach Git in the same way, but I didn't try. I believe > the important part is to start with a minimal useful level of version > control, and let practice do the rest. That's of course not possible in a > two-day intensive workshop. > > Konrad. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >
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