[Python-Dev] Helping contributors with chores (do we have to?)

Chris Angelico rosuav at gmail.com
Sun Jun 25 12:09:19 EDT 2017


On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 1:52 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Jun 2017 01:27:20 +1000
> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 7:25 PM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
>> >> There're also various tools for dealing specifically with git branch
>> >> layout as used by Github, and every real man writes their own (because
>> >> it's easier to shoot a 5-liner than to review whether somebody else's
>> >> tool do what you need or not, it's all trivial git commands anyway).
>> >
>> > I guess I'm not a "real man" who likes to "shoot 5-liners" made of
>> > "trivial git commands" on my free time, then.  For some reason I'm not
>> > even interested in becoming one.  The part of computing where people
>> > posture as "real men" (or "wizards") by sequencing arcane commands on
>> > ill-conceived UIs has always felt uninteresting and hostile to me.
>>
>> In the web programming bootcamp that I'm involved with, git is taught
>> in the very first week. It's not some arcane and hostile thing; the
>> command line is a fundamental tool that everyone is expected to become
>> friends with. The students learn about branching and merging
>> (including merge conflicts) and the pull-request workflow on the
>> second day of bootcamp.
>>
>> Are we "real men" (and real women - we're not sexist here) because we
>> know how to type commands into a terminal?
>
> The patronizing and not addressing the concrete issue at hand doesn't
> make your opinion about "real men and women" very interesting to me,
> sorry :-/

My point is that EVERY developer needs to understand source control.
Since git is the dominant system these days, that basically means
everyone needs to understand git, although if you know (say) Mercurial
instead, that's adequate for 99% of situations (the other 1% being
where you're specifically collaborating on a git project). It's not
about some kind of supermen who know git, and everyone else who
doesn't. The command line is not an alternative to a GUI; it is
augmented by one. It is not "arcane" and "hostile"; it is a basic
fundamental of any sort of serious use of a computer.

ChrisA


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