Re: [PATCH 2/5] doc: git-add: start man page with an example

From: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Date: Aug 12, 2025, 22:45 UTC
Message-ID: <4d922dbf-ad97-42da-be19-905de5bd18de@app.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqwm78p4uh.fsf@gitster.g>

Show 7 quoted lines

> Yes, I have heard that for recent crop of developers especially
> newgrads, Git is the only SCM they've ever touched.  If we can
> assume that the data and mental model of Git is natural for our
> intended audiences, that is great (we can also forget about the
> diff/patch based world view, which comes from how CVS/RCS stored
> their revision data, and assume that the snapshot based world view
> is natural to our readers).

Git is certainly the only version control system I've ever used: I started using it when I was a new grad 15 years ago. Everything I know about Subversion or CVS (almost nothing) I know from reading explanations of Git aimed at their users or from trying to understand the origin of some of Git's terminology choices :)

re whether the snapshot based world view is "natural" or not to Git users: I did some very unscientific polls about people's mental models of Git a while back at https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/03/28/git-poll-results/#commits

That one says that 42% of folks who responded think of commits as "snapshots" and 50% as "diffs", which feels encouraging to me: after all, the poll doesn't ask how Git represents commits internally, and many people replied in the comments to say that they think of commits in both ways depending on the situation.