I agree. That's why jj uses practically the same model. That's how Git can quite easily be used as a backend.
> I just looked at its FAQ, and saw a bunch of nonsensical new terms as well.
Like what? Perhaps we can improve it.
I'm sure it is stuff that makes sense to a jj user. Since I have not read the manual, it is nonsense to me. I'm just drawing attention to the fact it's a different set of non-obvious terminology and features as compared to git. I'm sure anyone who read the manual for either tool could figure it out. The trouble with git is that people don't read the manual, and hardly try to do anything with it, then loudly complain about it being tricky. Anything as complicated as version control is going to be tricky if you don't read the manual. I don't think making another tool entirely is the right solution. Perhaps a different set of git porcelain tools could help, or some git aliases. Maybe better documentation too. But some people just can't be pleased.
> I don't think making another tool entirely is the right solution.
I considered making the changes to Git but the changes I wanted to make would make the UX so different that it would basically mean introducing a whole parallel command set to Git. I figured it would take ages to get Git to that state, if I could sell the ideas to the Git community at all. By the way, the video above talks about an proposed `git history` series of commands inspired by Jujutsu (also see https://lore.kernel.org/git/20250819-b4-pks-history-builtin-...).
I think I saw Scott Chacon talk about his git config file and advanced git features. Whoever it was, it mentioned GitButler. That was a good talk. I would certainly expect someone like that to have a lot of interest and expertise in git. But it seem to me that there is also a potential commercial angle to making a new/alternative VCS.
I looked at the mailing list entry you linked to about `git history` commands and thought to myself, it sounds all wrong and redundant. `git history` sounds like too broad of a name for one thing. I'd want to have it be `git <verb>` instead. All the operations listed can be done with rebase:
- `git history drop`: Instead, rebase interactively and drop one or more commits.
- `git history reorder`: Interactively rebasing makes this work already.
- `git history split`: Insert a pause in the interactive rebase. Do a soft reset or something to the previous commit, and use `git restore` to unstage the changes (there might be a more efficient way to do this in one step, but idk). Then, do `git add -p` to add what you want, commit, as many times as you want to split the patch. Then continue the rebase.
- `git history reword`: There is a reword option in interactive rebase mode, and also a fixup-like option to do it as well if you want to postpone the rebase.
- `git history squash`: Rebase can do this now in multiple ways.
Rebasing is not that hard. It is the Swiss Army knife of VCS tools. Once you realize that you can just break in the middle of a rebase and do nearly anything (except start another rebase), the world is your oyster. We don't need to spam people with many more single-purpose tools. We need people to understand why the way things are is actually pretty damn good already, if only they read the manual.
What we should do instead is provide a bunch of primitives, that as high-level are as possible so to not end up with duplicate commands, which is what git does currently. `git history` as a name is somewhat pointless, since the whole point of git is to produce and modify the history. In that sense `git history` already exists, it is called `git`.
I think the issue newbies have is not that git commands are hard per se, but that they don't think in terms of modifying the graph yet, or that they don't know which primitives are available.