6 ms·

Gitbox - Everyday git [Mac OS X] interface for human beings

82 points by shaynesweeney 16y ago

KirinDave 16y ago
They're going to need to do a lot more UI work before I'd even consider this over GitX. Right now it looks like a less useful, less pretty, more confusing version of GitX.
- jshen 16y ago
  i've always found gitx to be very confusing for simple things. I.e. viewing a single file at a few different points in the history. frankly, gitx is a low bar
  - KirinDave 16y ago
    Yes, it is. That's the problem.
kljensen 16y ago
God I wish I understood GIT. The screenshot here doesn't help me in any way. Tempted to stick with gitx. What is the advantage of this software?
- melling 16y ago
  Sign up for a github account. It's free and they have help. If you're on Windows, I've been told TortoiseGit is good. http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/ http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/
  - nailer 16y ago
    I like github too. It's very understandable - I find it better than the app shown here - and the help is great.
- Groxx 16y ago
  I'm with you, and I do understand Git fairly well. The UI is pretty opaque for non-VCS/Git users.
- micampe 16y ago
  at first glance, I prefer GitX, as it allows faster and more fine-grained staging and commit. the only feature this seems to have over GitX is push/pull. my typical usage is GitX for commits and history browsing and the shell for everything else.
  - steilpass 16y ago
    +1 And I highly encourage everyone to get familiar with the command line first.
thethimble 16y ago
It seems to me that a lot of popular Unix-originated software seems to have really high learning curves (Vim comes to mind). I wish projects like git spent more efforts on things like GUIs. Does anybody know of any Linux alternatives?
- piramida 16y ago
  Then again, git is not a consumer software. Developer should spend some time and learn 5 commands to be productive. But I find this interface interesting, even knowing all command line git this makes browsing history for reviews easy, nice tool.
  - bruceboughton 16y ago
    The command line is very efficient for input of commands, far more so than GUIs (though keyboard shortcuts mitigate this). GUIs are far more efficient for output of infomation though, especially verbose info like history, log files, etc. It surprises me that die-hard CLIers often fail to recognise this.
    - mechanical_fish 16y ago
      And, in fact, my git setup has evolved to rely on magit (an emacs-based git GUI of sorts) for some operations, and the command line for others, and GitX for others. In this case the best tool, even for experts, is a hybrid tool.
  - nailer 16y ago
    >> a lot of popular Unix-originated software seems to have really high learning curves >git is not a consumer software I don't understand. What does being consumer software or not have to do with learning curves? Do you think developers don't appreciate simplicity or discoverability?
    - piramida 16y ago
      The more time is spent learning something, the better you can use it later. For consumer software, getting stuff done right now without any prior education is important. For developer tools, learning your tools is a necessity to perform the task better. If you hide complexity behind a pretty UI, you end up with broken projects when something unexpected happens during push to production and nobody on your team spent time reading the manuals. So what I'm saying, I guess, is that steep learning curve for real tools is a good practice which should not be avoided. You don't want to be operating a chainsaw without reading the manual first.
harpastum 16y ago
I think it's very possible that these pretty wrappers allow people to hobble along with little to no understanding of how git actually works. If that's the only way that you'll use version control, it's better than nothing. On the other hand, I heartily endorse actually learning how the git model works -- it's not too bad, I promise! . Good places to start: [1] Peepcode's "Git Internals" PDF - $9 - short, sweet, to the point [2] The Git Community Book [2] - free - thorough (if a bit wordy sometimes) [3] Pro Git - free online, $23 dead trees - Haven't read it, same author as [1] [1] http://peepcode.com/products/git-internals-pdf http://peepcode.com/products/git-internals-pdf [2] http://book.git-scm.com/ http://book.git-scm.com/ [3] http://progit.org/book/ http://progit.org/book/
- p3ll0n 16y ago
  If you want to learn git, open a terminal and read the man pages, create a dummy repository, push changes to it, pull from it, clone it, merge it, etc. Don't start with something like Gitbox because its hides all the details and more importantly the beauty and elegance of git.
  - p3ll0n 16y ago
    Don't get me wrong Gitbox (and similar 'pretty wrappers') have their place just not as a learning tool. My rule of thumb for 'mission critical software' like version control systems - if you can't access its fully functionality at the shell when logged in to a remote machine then forget about it. Gitbox is great for your workflow until the day you have to actually use git and you have no time to 'actually' learn git.
    - rfugger 16y ago
      Seems to me like the perfect time to learn git is when you need to use it.
      - eru 16y ago
        You should prefer Darcs then. It's written in a lazy language that does everything at the last possible moment (if at all). (Disclaimer: Tongue in cheek.)
obeattie 16y ago
I'm still divided how I feel about these things. On the one hand, I actually find them very useful for staging and unstaging changes and visualizing branch/merge history, but on the other I worry for the people whose only interaction with git is via one of these GUI wrappers. To my mind, they keep you "too far away" from the gears of the version control system, and in this case a distributed version control system — a very important point to remember, as people who only use this and never a command line wouldn't have a hope in hell of using the distributed part of git — rebase a branch? merge in several heads? I'd like to see them try. As for this particular one, though, I can't see it offers any advantage over GitX, apart from the "it's not a RubyCocoa app", which isn't really that great an advantage to my mind…
jarin 16y ago
If you're a developer: Git is faster to work with and more powerful to use from the command line if you take maybe 20 minutes to go through a good tutorial. It took you much longer to learn how to program, and it's worth taking the time to get good at it. If you're a designer, writer, etc: Even though it only takes 20 minutes to learn, if a GUI is what it takes to get you to use version control I guess that is the lesser of two evils :)
- aantix 16y ago
  I love the cheat gem. sudo gem install cheat Then do : cheat git A great shortcut to all of the common git command sequences.
  - mickeyben 16y ago
    sweet didn't know about it, it's very handy with my little Mac OS X alias to open preview from command line : alias preview='groff -Tps > /tmp/tmp.ps && open -a Preview /tmp/tmp.ps' So you can do : cheat git | preview
    - kalid 16y ago
      Awesome, thanks for sharing that alias.
    - aantix 16y ago
      Nice, very cool alias. Thank-you! P.S. As an added note, there are TONS of cheat sheets out there. Just do a 'cheat sheets' from the command line and you'll get the all listed. Some of the more common ones I would suspect in the HN community are : cheat svn cheat rails cheat named_scope cheat curl cheat blueprint cheat bash cheat mysql cheat ruby
- hboon 16y ago
  And an excellent read to learn about Git is http://tom.preston-werner.com/2009/05/19/the-git-parable.html http://tom.preston-werner.com/2009/05/19/the-git-parable.htm..., from a GitHub cofounder.
jerome_etienne 16y ago
"Say, you move a file from one folder to another: in the Terminal you would have to “git rm” the old path (the file is gone, so no tab-completion) and “git add” the new path" -- from the homapage. well "git mv" is doing that just fine... It doesnt appear to serious on the homepage of a git product :) http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-mv.html http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-mv.html
- kree10 16y ago
  That aside, "git rm" (and "svn rm" and "cvs remove" for that matter) all tab-complete for me even when the "file is gone".
po 16y ago
This looks pretty ok but I have to say it again: Gitx is awesome. I use this every day. http://gitx.frim.nl/seeit.html http://gitx.frim.nl/seeit.html You can also try out the experimental fork version: http://wiki.github.com/brotherbard/gitx/ http://wiki.github.com/brotherbard/gitx/
scorpion032 16y ago
There needs to be a "for human beings" version of everything, because, we are all, human beings!
- flubba 16y ago
  human after all
hermanthegerman 16y ago
The git that everyone would use is to the actual git what the app store is to apt-get. ;-)

82 points by shaynesweeney 16y ago

They're going to need to do a lot more UI work before I'd even consider this over GitX. Right now it looks like a less useful, less pretty, more confusing version of GitX.

jshen 16y ago
i've always found gitx to be very confusing for simple things. I.e. viewing a single file at a few different points in the history. frankly, gitx is a low bar
- KirinDave 16y ago
  Yes, it is. That's the problem.

kljensen 16y ago

God I wish I understood GIT. The screenshot here doesn't help me in any way. Tempted to stick with gitx. What is the advantage of this software?

melling 16y ago
Sign up for a github account. It's free and they have help. If you're on Windows, I've been told TortoiseGit is good. http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/ http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/
- nailer 16y ago
  I like github too. It's very understandable - I find it better than the app shown here - and the help is great.
Groxx 16y ago
I'm with you, and I do understand Git fairly well. The UI is pretty opaque for non-VCS/Git users.
micampe 16y ago
at first glance, I prefer GitX, as it allows faster and more fine-grained staging and commit. the only feature this seems to have over GitX is push/pull. my typical usage is GitX for commits and history browsing and the shell for everything else.
- steilpass 16y ago
  +1 And I highly encourage everyone to get familiar with the command line first.

thethimble 16y ago

It seems to me that a lot of popular Unix-originated software seems to have really high learning curves (Vim comes to mind). I wish projects like git spent more efforts on things like GUIs. Does anybody know of any Linux alternatives?

piramida 16y ago
Then again, git is not a consumer software. Developer should spend some time and learn 5 commands to be productive. But I find this interface interesting, even knowing all command line git this makes browsing history for reviews easy, nice tool.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  The command line is very efficient for input of commands, far more so than GUIs (though keyboard shortcuts mitigate this). GUIs are far more efficient for output of infomation though, especially verbose info like history, log files, etc. It surprises me that die-hard CLIers often fail to recognise this.
  - mechanical_fish 16y ago
    And, in fact, my git setup has evolved to rely on magit (an emacs-based git GUI of sorts) for some operations, and the command line for others, and GitX for others. In this case the best tool, even for experts, is a hybrid tool.
- nailer 16y ago
  >> a lot of popular Unix-originated software seems to have really high learning curves >git is not a consumer software I don't understand. What does being consumer software or not have to do with learning curves? Do you think developers don't appreciate simplicity or discoverability?
  - piramida 16y ago
    The more time is spent learning something, the better you can use it later. For consumer software, getting stuff done right now without any prior education is important. For developer tools, learning your tools is a necessity to perform the task better. If you hide complexity behind a pretty UI, you end up with broken projects when something unexpected happens during push to production and nobody on your team spent time reading the manuals. So what I'm saying, I guess, is that steep learning curve for real tools is a good practice which should not be avoided. You don't want to be operating a chainsaw without reading the manual first.

harpastum 16y ago

I think it's very possible that these pretty wrappers allow people to hobble along with little to no understanding of how git actually works. If that's the only way that you'll use version control, it's better than nothing. On the other hand, I heartily endorse actually learning how the git model works -- it's not too bad, I promise! . Good places to start: [1] Peepcode's "Git Internals" PDF - $9 - short, sweet, to the point [2] The Git Community Book [2] - free - thorough (if a bit wordy sometimes) [3] Pro Git - free online, $23 dead trees - Haven't read it, same author as [1] [1] http://peepcode.com/products/git-internals-pdf http://peepcode.com/products/git-internals-pdf [2] http://book.git-scm.com/ http://book.git-scm.com/ [3] http://progit.org/book/ http://progit.org/book/

p3ll0n 16y ago
If you want to learn git, open a terminal and read the man pages, create a dummy repository, push changes to it, pull from it, clone it, merge it, etc. Don't start with something like Gitbox because its hides all the details and more importantly the beauty and elegance of git.
- p3ll0n 16y ago
  Don't get me wrong Gitbox (and similar 'pretty wrappers') have their place just not as a learning tool. My rule of thumb for 'mission critical software' like version control systems - if you can't access its fully functionality at the shell when logged in to a remote machine then forget about it. Gitbox is great for your workflow until the day you have to actually use git and you have no time to 'actually' learn git.
  - rfugger 16y ago
    Seems to me like the perfect time to learn git is when you need to use it.
    - eru 16y ago
      You should prefer Darcs then. It's written in a lazy language that does everything at the last possible moment (if at all). (Disclaimer: Tongue in cheek.)

obeattie 16y ago

I'm still divided how I feel about these things. On the one hand, I actually find them very useful for staging and unstaging changes and visualizing branch/merge history, but on the other I worry for the people whose only interaction with git is via one of these GUI wrappers. To my mind, they keep you "too far away" from the gears of the version control system, and in this case a distributed version control system — a very important point to remember, as people who only use this and never a command line wouldn't have a hope in hell of using the distributed part of git — rebase a branch? merge in several heads? I'd like to see them try. As for this particular one, though, I can't see it offers any advantage over GitX, apart from the "it's not a RubyCocoa app", which isn't really that great an advantage to my mind…

jarin 16y ago

If you're a developer: Git is faster to work with and more powerful to use from the command line if you take maybe 20 minutes to go through a good tutorial. It took you much longer to learn how to program, and it's worth taking the time to get good at it. If you're a designer, writer, etc: Even though it only takes 20 minutes to learn, if a GUI is what it takes to get you to use version control I guess that is the lesser of two evils :)

aantix 16y ago
I love the cheat gem. sudo gem install cheat Then do : cheat git A great shortcut to all of the common git command sequences.
- mickeyben 16y ago
  sweet didn't know about it, it's very handy with my little Mac OS X alias to open preview from command line : alias preview='groff -Tps > /tmp/tmp.ps && open -a Preview /tmp/tmp.ps' So you can do : cheat git | preview
  - kalid 16y ago
    Awesome, thanks for sharing that alias.
  - aantix 16y ago
    Nice, very cool alias. Thank-you! P.S. As an added note, there are TONS of cheat sheets out there. Just do a 'cheat sheets' from the command line and you'll get the all listed. Some of the more common ones I would suspect in the HN community are : cheat svn cheat rails cheat named_scope cheat curl cheat blueprint cheat bash cheat mysql cheat ruby
hboon 16y ago
And an excellent read to learn about Git is http://tom.preston-werner.com/2009/05/19/the-git-parable.html http://tom.preston-werner.com/2009/05/19/the-git-parable.htm..., from a GitHub cofounder.

jerome_etienne 16y ago

"Say, you move a file from one folder to another: in the Terminal you would have to “git rm” the old path (the file is gone, so no tab-completion) and “git add” the new path" -- from the homapage. well "git mv" is doing that just fine... It doesnt appear to serious on the homepage of a git product :) http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-mv.html http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-mv.html

kree10 16y ago
That aside, "git rm" (and "svn rm" and "cvs remove" for that matter) all tab-complete for me even when the "file is gone".

po 16y ago

This looks pretty ok but I have to say it again: Gitx is awesome. I use this every day. http://gitx.frim.nl/seeit.html http://gitx.frim.nl/seeit.html You can also try out the experimental fork version: http://wiki.github.com/brotherbard/gitx/ http://wiki.github.com/brotherbard/gitx/

scorpion032 16y ago

There needs to be a "for human beings" version of everything, because, we are all, human beings!

flubba 16y ago
human after all

hermanthegerman 16y ago

The git that everyone would use is to the actual git what the app store is to apt-get. ;-)