Git is too complex for most of us

I guess that meanwhile even the most old-school companies have recognised that versioning source code should be a must. It's not 100% true because I know a profitable, decades-in-business one-man-show software company that does versioning by copying directories–yes, in 2025– but I'd argue that these folks are rare these days.

And because Git, the source code management tool, is ubiquitous in software development so many companies and solo developers use it. But Git is far from perfect for ordinary software companies. At least, that's my experience based on working with it myself and seeing other companies and developers working with it. Git's popularity in source code management is similar to Wordpress's in CMS and blog software.

Both, Git and Wordpress work, you can get your job done with them but there are many little things that make your daily life harder than it needs to be. It's the classic example of the "winner takes it all" market effect or the cumulative advantage they accrued over time.

I'm working with Git professionally since 2015, not because I love it, because there's no way around it. Since I'm independent now I can choose the tools that I like and I don't need to use Git but when I work with other companies or I work on open-source–most of these are on Github–I need to put up with Git whether I like it or not.

This sounds harsh, it isn't that bad in practice because I developed a good-enough understanding to get out of every unpleasant Git situation I've faced within my career. I learned to live with its peculiarities like we do with a lot of things in life. At some point though the moment for re-thinking old habits should come and induce change into our boring programming habits. Maybe there's a better–or less awkward way–of grinding.

When I watch my programmer peers–including veterans–nobody is even remotely happy with Git. It's worse for young programmers that step into the industry. I've seen it this week at the company where I support the development team in building more robust and flexible software. At the same time when I talk about software design principles I should also hold a dozens of dedicated Git workshops. They use the minimum of Git and when something goes only slightly wrong they spend 3 hours trying to fix the problem without really fixing it.

What is the answer to this?

Try a different version control system than Git. One that was designed for every-day "normal" company development workflows. I use Fossil SCM and I was astonished how much easier source code management can be. It lacks on integrations with other tools in the ecosystem but nothing that I couldn't have replaced quite easily. There are others available too. Pick your favourite!