Programming

I don't use a GUI, with the exception of Meld as my primary difftool

At work I wish they were using git. But we got SVN. How I long for the ability to use pull requests. But tortoiseSVN has some nice features (I'm stuck with windows over there) even if it's lacking in overall functionality.

I use the VS Code built-in git support for making commits, and fall back to the CLI for anything else.

You won't have trouble remembering commands once you use them often enough. And you don't need to know all of them, just the ones your workflow uses. My toolbox is commit, checkout, status, reset, rebase -i, merge, bisect. That's all I need day-to-day.

Since I work in Linux and primarily code in languages like C and C++ (i.e. compiled langs), I work completely in the terminal, so I don't use any GUI. It's nice and I'm already there for my compiling so I might as well use it for git.

However, re remembering all the commands, there is a nifty website I found a while ago and bookmarked called Git Explorer where you basically choose from dropdowns of what you want to do and it gives you the command(s) for it.

I use IntelliJ's built-in git GUI.

I don't understand why people use command line only. Sure, learn the commands so if you need to use them you can, but most GUIs are far more feature rich than command line. With IntelliJ, I can easily view differences before committing, have it do code quality scans, automatically clean up any code it can, more easily choose which files I want to commit vs the typical 'git add .' I see most people do with command line, have separate changelists when pair programming, and much more.

One argument that continually comes up is that command line is faster. I completely disagree. If I want to just commit the code without reviewing it, I can use 2 hot keys and the code is committed and pushed. But as I do a quick readthrough of all the code first and review issues from the code quality analysis it does take more time, but still less than it would to do comparable things with command line.

Since I use Emacs I've been really happy with Magit, even tho it's UI has a bit of a learning curve to it. I've been also trying out Gitg since I moved back to GNOME and it's been really solid as well. It lacks a couple really nieche features but otherwise as a fast commit tracking/writing tool it's very good.

SourceTree when I was still a software engineer.

I'm a manager now, and I see people insisting on command line who have no idea what they're doing. Then don't! I think it's an awful attitude that real programmers use git command line, and GUIs are for babies. Please call out this attitude whenever you see it. Use tools that work for you. Git has a terrible user experience, let's face it.

I use SourceTree regularly, but when shit hits the fan, I always fall back to the terminal.

I have some git blame extention in VSCode, but otherwise no. Something about using gui tool for git makes me feel so disconnected from it, like I'm not entirely sure what's going on, and afraid I'm going to fuck something up

Also, I forget commands all the time. Mostly ones I don't use often, like changing/adding/removing remotes, changing settings, etc.

KDE has a relatively new git tool named Kommit: https://apps.kde.org/de/kommit

I use sublime merge because I really like ST and want to further support the dev. I wish it had more integrations with github (and theoretically github alternatives), but I understand the reasoning not to. Before SM came out I just used the command line exclusively.

Magit with emacs (doom emacs to be fully honest). More a TUI, but definitely fully keyboard driven :)

Lazygit changed how I use git, it is so easy to do all the daily essentials like branching, committing, and merging, but also also does more advanced things like interactive rebasing when needed.

I had searched for a proper git client, that was free and open source plus worked on both Linux and Windows, for a long time and I haven't looked back after finding lazygit.

Developing in a Windows environment, I generally prefer Git Extensions.
It doesn't distract the eye with unneeded fancy and is very close to a command line git experience but still allows me a better visual sense of the repository and branches.

I use TortoiseGit.

The log window gives me overview and almost every action I need. Committing, diffing, switching, rebasing, creating and deleting branches and tags, pushing, fetching, merging, view logs of files, blaming, filtering…

The log view is still much better than the VS Git log view. And due to it's visual GUI it's much better than CLI when going beyond just one branch or a low number of my own branches.

It's a paid app only available for Windows and Mac at the moment, but Fork may be worth a look: https://git-fork.com

I use the TUI gitui Though I also use the git cli directly too, depends on what I'm doing.

I use various extensions for Visual Studio Code. They add a million features, but these are the ones I find most useful:

I prefer to view the current status of my checkout in the sidebar of my code editor than on the command line.

It's easier to view a diff of a file and decide whether to stage or rollback changes in a GUI. With most GUIs you can even select individual lines of code and revert or stage them.

I like how Commit and Push and Pull are a single "Commit & Sync" button in Visual Studio code. Similarly there's a simple "Sync" button in the status bar.

Speaking of the status bar - it also has a counter for commits that need to be pushed or pulled. And it tells you what branch you're currently on. And whether you have uncommitted changes. Handy.

I find the GUI equivalent of git log --graph is significantly easier to understand when the graph is drawn with nice vector lines instead of ASCII art.

Finally - I don't just use raw git, I also use extensions like pull requests, and I create branches for issue numbers. I have an extension that shows pull requests in Visual Studio Code and also shows issues assigned to me, with a one click "Start Working" button to create a branch named after the issue and change the issue status to In Progress. And when I'm finished working on it, there's a button for that too.

I've tried a lot and settled with vim-fugitive. If you know and like Vim-keybindings it's probably the best choice out there.

Github desktop is the only way I know how to clone my private repo. I do not understand how to clone my private repos through CLI.

I use GitKraken. It has a beautiful interface. It's free to use non-commercially but I pay $50/yr so that it can connect to my companies Enterprise account. I know I'm weak with git (I get the concepts but I'm a visual person) so the money is worth it to me.

I use git fork on Mac, same reason, I don't remember all the commands. Also want to see the history visualization

I use Lazygit, which is a TUI. It is entirely controlled by keyboard shortcuts and has a lot of quick ways to do tedious things.