senekor (u/senekor) - Readit News

senekor commented on The lazy Git UI you didn't know you need bwplotka.dev/2025/lazygit... · Posted by u/linhns

MrGreenTea · a month ago

also just to add that I've noticed that `jj` comes way easier and more intuitive to newbies I've mentored. Just yesterday I told a friend to commit his changes and he just wanted to do `git commit` (without remembering to do `git add` first). This made me realize we should just install `jujutsu` for him and he's been committing very diligently afterwards. Can recommend trying this with any people you mentor/teach.

senekor · a month ago

That's also my opinion, that jj should be easier for juniors to pick up. However, I felt like there's a lack of learning material targeted at people without prior VCS experience. That's why I wrote "Jujutsu for everyone": https://jj-for-everyone.github.io/.

senekor commented on Jujutsu for everyone jj-for-everyone.github.io... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

nocman · 4 months ago

Is there a particular pain point (or set of pain points) that you have using git which is removed when you use Jujutsu?

I am interested to know, because there seem to be a small number of people who really seem to like it, and up to this point I haven't been able to understand what it is that they are all so excited about.

senekor · 4 months ago

Yes and no.

Before I started using Jujutsu, I didn't have any pain points with using Git. I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Git works well! So I totally understand how most Git users have that same reaction when hearing about Jujutsu.

I think the reason I even tried it out in the first place was because Steve Klabnik wrote a tutorial about it. I have a lot of respect for him, because the Rust book is really good. So I though: If Steve thinks it's worth it, I should probably check it out.

Now that I'm used to jj, going back reveals like 100 things that are immediately super annoying when using git. I don't feel like writing it all down TBH. :-) In a general sense, Jujutsu get's out of your way much better than Git. There are a lot of situations where Git blocks you from continuing to work. Have a merge conflict? Stop working, fix it right now. Want to check out another branch? Nu-uh, clean up your dirty worktree first. jj doesn't do that. Have a conflict? I'll record it in the commit, fix it whenever you like. Checking out another branch? No worries, I'll keep your work in progress safe in a commit.

senekor commented on Jujutsu for everyone jj-for-everyone.github.io... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

veqq · 4 months ago

jj is akin to a wrapper of coherent aliases thrown over git. No one else knows you're using it, because it uses git under the hood. It's just a simpler abstraction without insane naming and flag conventions.

senekor · 4 months ago

I mean, it certainly is that, but not only that. Jujutsu has more to offer than a consistently designed CLI. You can't do non-blocking merge/rebase conflicts with Git aliases. You can't do `jj absorb` with Git aliases. And you can't automatically rebase all descendants of a branch without first merging them all together, which may cause conflicts that then prevent you from performing the actual rebase. Just some examples of "more than a bunch of Git aliases" ;-)

senekor commented on Jujutsu for everyone jj-for-everyone.github.io... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

jennyholzer · 4 months ago

I appreciate this perspective.

IMO, the authors and evangelists of Git are essentially correct when they argue about its power.

However, I think that it's extremely difficult to gain practical experience with using Git in a high-powered, high-agency way, mostly because there are a lot of abstract concepts at play and there is no easily accessible place where these concepts can be "discovered".

Basically, Git is as good as it's cracked up to be, but only if you're an expert.

If you're interested in becoming a Git expert, I cannot recommend Emacs Magit strongly enough.

If not, I think Jujutsu could be an quicker road to a high-agency version control workflow. It's at least worth considering. I feel confident that Jujutsu can succeed, in particular because of Git's harsh difficulty curve.

senekor · 4 months ago

Thanks, but I consider myself a Git expert already :-) I read the Pro Git book cover to cover. I have a gluten-free, artisanal, free-range git config that I've grown and cared for over years. single character aliases all the important commands, "log all graph oneline", "commit amend no-edit", interactive rebase (ofc. with autosquash, autostash, updaterefs and rebasemerges), reset hard, push force-with-lease... Also: commit signing, url rewriting, conditional configs for different orgs, all that jazz. I was super productive with it and loved it.

And then Jujutsu came along and casually doubled my VCS productivity. I didn't see it coming!

senekor commented on Jujutsu for everyone jj-for-everyone.github.io... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

thewisenerd · 4 months ago

i've been using jj for the past few weeks on a feature heavy project. my entire "workflow" is no more than these 4 commands, rinse and repeat:

    jj new main@github
    jj describe
    jj git push -c {prefix}
    jj git fetch

my couple thoughts:

- i'm forced to be "strict" with my changeset since there's no `git add -P`

- bookmarks are a pain to keep up-to-date with `jj new`, i don't know if i even want to do that. for multi-commit changes, i've defaulted to `jj new` a couple times as needed, and `git push -c` the latest.

- i'm sure some day i'll understand the `@..` and `roots()` incantations but for now the most complex thing i've successfully pulled off is `jj rebase -s 'roots(main@github..@)' -d main@github`

i don't think trying to map your current git flows 1-to-1 onto jj is going to be a very fruitful exercise.

senekor · 4 months ago

Just a few tips:

> - i'm forced to be "strict" with my changeset since there's no `git add -P`

Check out the command `jj split` and possibly `jj squash --interactive`.

> - bookmarks are a pain to keep up-to-date with `jj new`

There's a neat alias a lot of people use:

```toml [aliases] tug = ["bookmark", "move", "--from", "heads(::@- & bookmarks())", "--to", "@-"] ```

It finds the closest bookmark and moves it to `@-`. Pretty much exactly what you want when adding more commits on top of an existing branch.

senekor commented on Jujutsu for everyone jj-for-everyone.github.io... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

jennyholzer · 4 months ago

Are there "central concepts" in the Jujutsu design?

I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around what specific details would cause me to choose Jujutsu over Git, in particular because of Git's industry standard status.

I think this is a very interesting concept, but I think it could go farther with some more targeted marketing along these lines. Of course, if Git power users are not Jujutsu's intended audience, then this comment may be irrelvant.

I think one of Git's great weaknesses is its unfriendliness to newcomers (jargon, deep features, lack of discoverability, lack of accessible GUI frontends), so there's probably a lot of potential for a VC solution that is easier for a newcomer to jump into.

senekor · 4 months ago

> I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around what specific details would cause me to choose Jujutsu over Git, in particular because of Git's industry standard status.

Jujutsu is Git-compatible, so there's nothing to lose. It can literally create the `.git` directory next to the `.jj` directory to fool all your existing tools into thinking this is a git repository.

There are a few limitations... Jujutsu currently ignores submodules, for example. So you have to run `git submodule update` sometimes. And when you yourself update the submodule, you need to `git commit` instead of `jj commit`.

Git LFS is also not supported. Apart from that, it's smooth sailing AFAIK.

> I think this is a very interesting concept, but I think it could go farther with some more targeted marketing along these lines. Of course, if Git power users are not Jujutsu's intended audience, then this comment may be irrelvant.

Git power users are definitely part of the target audience, most Jujutsu users today are retired Git power users. Because that's not the target audience of my tutorial though, I didn't write much about that. Some of the features jj users are most excited about include: - Conflicts are non-blocking. Merge and rebase always succeed, conflicts are recorded in the commit itself. You can work on something else and come back later to solve them. - There is `jj undo` and `jj redo` which work like Ctrl[+Shift]+Z in GUI apps and text editors. They affect the whole repository, because that has basically its own linear history. Reflog on steroids, basically. - `jj absorb` can find the most recent commit that touched the same lines and squash your changes into it. It's magical if you're working on several things in parallel (by merging the separate branches together, just for development.)

These are just some examples that come up the most in the "appreciation" channel on the Jujutsu discord.

> I think one of Git's great weaknesses is its unfriendliness to newcomers (jargon, deep features, lack of discoverability, lack of accessible GUI frontends), so there's probably a lot of potential for a VC solution that is easier for a newcomer to jump into.

Yes! I think Jujutsu has a lot of potential there as well. But there's a lack of learning material for that target audience... hence why I wrote this tutorial :-)

senekor commented on Jujutsu for everyone jj-for-everyone.github.io... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

marcuskaz · 4 months ago

> Jujutsu is more powerful than Git. Despite the fact that it's easier to learn and more intuitive, it actually has loads of awesome capabilities for power users that completely leave Git in the dust.

Like? This isn't explained, I'm curious on why I would want to use it, but this is just an empty platitude, doesn't really give me a reason to try.

senekor · 4 months ago

Hi, author here. Since the target audience is people with little to no Git experience, a detailed comparison would not make sense. I did simply make that claim because the weirdness of Git's UI is usually justified by saying how powerful it is. So this statement is just intended to ease the readers mind that they're not missing out on power by choosing a tool that's easier to learn.