Ask HN: How would you redesign git?

4 points by tashmahalic 3 years ago | 5 comments

Git is popular. We have years of usage behind us now. With the benefit of hindsight, if you could redesign it now from scratch, with nary a concern for backwards compatibility, how would you improve its interface or architecture?

JoeyBananas 3 years ago |

I would change the term "The index" to "The staging area."

https://felipec.wordpress.com/2021/08/10/git-staging-area-re...

felipec 3 years ago |

So many things, but if I were to pick one, I would add a `git stage` command to work with the staging area (wrongly called "the index").

git stage add (git add), git stage delete (git rm --cached), git stage diff (git diff --cached), git stage edit (not possible today)

marssaxman 3 years ago |

That's easy: I'd replace git with mercurial.

wmf 3 years ago |

Check out Gitless and Sapling.

more_corn 3 years ago |

Name things better