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git is hurting my productivity

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  git is hurting my productivity Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> - 2026-11-10 18:26 -0300
    Re: git is hurting my productivity 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jmj@energokod.gda.pl> - 2026-11-11 02:15 +0100
      Re: git is hurting my productivity 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jmj@energokod.gda.pl> - 2026-11-11 02:29 +0100
    Re: git is boosting my productivity Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-11 02:13 +0000

#16946 — git is hurting my productivity

Pretty much all my life I've been working alone [1].  Working alone it
matters little whether I commit often or not.  It turns out I don't like
to commit just because I wrote some new function.  I don't think git
should be used as some kind of backup system, although it is.  I prefer
to make commits that contain integral new additions to the software.  I
like a history that's organized.  As a result, I sometimes rewrite
history to fix some of these mistakes I make.  I know enough about it to
really clean things up and rewrite the history---it's okay because I'm
working alone.  But then this week I spend three days cleaning things
up.  That's no good, man.  What for?  Nobody is watching my repository.
I'm just wasting my time.  I'm even going to collapse this entire
repository into a single commit very soon out of spite.  There's no
chance I'm ever using any previous version.  I should just go back to
life without version control unless I'm working with somebody else.  If
I ever want a backup, I can just ``cp -pR v1 v2''.

(*) Footnotes

[1] When I used git in companies, people just used it as a method for
uploading code somewhere anyway, so it was mostly useless as a version
control system.

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#16947

W dniu 10.11.2026 o 22:26, Anton Antimo pisze:
> But then this week I spend three days cleaning things
> up.  That's no good, man.  What for?  Nobody is watching my repository.

That is pure nonsense for me. In Git you can easy create "working 
branch" for each of your task. Before merge you can "rebase" with master 
branch (in the case there were commits or merge in to master in the 
middle time). Quote:

> git checkout feature-branch
> git rebase master

, source: "Programista" no. 4/2025/119, art. under title "Repozytorium 
Bez Chaosu", page 7.

Then you can easily "squash" all commits in your "working branch". In 
order to open interactive session, Quote:

> git rebase -i HEAD~4

, source: ibidem, but page 8.

Then you can merge your "working branch" as single commit.

As you can see this require complete 0 (literally "zero") overhead, but 
require little discipline with branch creation and preparation for merge 
to the master branch.

NOTE: I DO NOT CHECKED ABOVE IN PRACTISE, BECAUSE FOR NOW I AM 
UNEMPLOYED, BUT I LEARNED IT FROM "PROGRAMISTA" MAGAZINE (IBIDEM).

-- 
Z totaliztycznym salutem!
Jacek Marcin Jaworski,  Pruszcz Gd., woj. Pomorskie, Polska 🇵🇱, UE 🇪🇺;
Pryw. s. WWW: <https://energokod.gda.pl>; Pryw. tel.: +48-609-170-742;
Netykieta:                  <https://energokod.gda.pl/Netykieta.html>.

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#16948

W dniu 11.11.2026 o 02:15, 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 pisze:
> git rebase -i HEAD~4

This command select last 4 commits and interactively allow you select 
which one of them should be squashed.

-- 
Z totaliztycznym salutem!
Jacek Marcin Jaworski,  Pruszcz Gd., woj. Pomorskie, Polska 🇵🇱, UE 🇪🇺;
Pryw. s. WWW: <https://energokod.gda.pl>; Pryw. tel.: +48-609-170-742;
Netykieta:                  <https://energokod.gda.pl/Netykieta.html>.

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#16949 — Re: git is boosting my productivity

On Tue, 10 Nov 2026 18:26:19 -0300, Anton Antimo wrote:

> Pretty much all my life I've been working alone [1].

So do I.

> Working alone it matters little whether I commit often or not.

I commit when it makes sense, not when it doesn’t.

> It turns out I don't like to commit just because I wrote some new
> function.

Commits should consist of a group of changes that make some kind of
cohesive sense.

It is quite common to work on a number of things in a single coding
session, and then go back and group those changes into multiple
commits. Sometimes you end up with a commit that might contain a
version of some file that never actually physically existed in that
form on disk at any point. That, too, is not unusual.

> I don't think git should be used as some kind of backup system,
> although it is.

It’s only a “backup” in the sense of “this didn’t work, I need to go
back to something that does”.

> I like a history that's organized. As a result, I sometimes rewrite
> history to fix some of these mistakes I make.

Nothing surprising, lots of people work that way.

> I know enough about it to really clean things up and rewrite the
> history---it's okay because I'm working alone.

Actually, it makes no difference whether you work alone or not. Just
remember to avoid rebasing already-published branches -- if you want
to avoid the ire of your co-workers. ;)

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