Creator of git, Linus Torvalds Presents the Fundamentals of git

[@jjpp1993]

"how do you solve merge conflicts?" with tears my friend, with hard earned tears

[@avhiro]

can't agree more

[@Nikage23]

Are you an iOS dev?) Lot's of xml stuff multiplies git by zero..

[@mad_kex]

Actually it's quite trivial if you have the right tools. The procedure which never fails me is to find the merge-base commit, examine what one and the other branch did to it in the conflicting files, pick one branch and replicate the changes that the other branch did. Several screens of merge conflict can collapse into a few lines of important stuff if you look at the diff against the merge base.

[@jjpp1993]

it was a joke guys…

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

And now git is a gigantic standard across so many companies. Imagine starting not 1, but 2 major software projects in your life that end up being used by millions daily

[@MrEnsiferum77]

Still u don't need to use git. Used by millions, doesn't mean u need 1000+ developers, u can do it with 32, and don't block each other.

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

@@MrEnsiferum77i was talking about Linus torvalds. He started two major software products used by millions. Not many people can say that.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

@@ruadeil_zabelin marketing wise yes, scalability great no.

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

⁠not really sure what you're talking about honestly

[@MrEnsiferum77]

@@ruadeil_zabelin git is not scalable solution

[@rancetino4951]

we need nobel prize for tech, Linus Torvalds

[@nirajandata]

lol, idk why youtube recommeded after 10 years

[@Gangesh-ej9vx]

same

[@hyperthreaded]

Yeah. But here we are, brought together by the algorithm 😎

[@glanfielduk]

L0⁰

[@Nekikanal-video]

Same

[@troyrobinson8343]

Same

[@darknezx9542]

Here because of the algo, what a fascinating talk!

[@VitaNova83]

Here in 2024, I use GIT everyday at work, for home projects, the algorithm that recommended this video and the software in my TV, the O/S running on the phone I'm typing this message on. All versioned in GIT.

[@jacobuserasmus]

I loved this video, It is fun to listen to when Git was not a thing compared to today where we take the Git concepts for granted but at the time they were simply not understood.

[@parthokr]

KZbin algorithm has never failed to amaze me.

[@ibgib]

I apologize, the algorithm showing this is my fault. I've been trying to show people that git is a local maximum natural monopoly. Its technical debt is now (20 years later) costing us in working more efficiently with AI (and other humans). This stems largely from a) the repo-level granularity and b) out-of-band metadata e.g. config, commit msgs, issue tracking, etc. If we had sub-repo level granularity and self-similar data + metadata, we could more easily leverage ai + ide solutions. Just think about failure of all existing solutions beyond simple, small colocated changes. The real solution is the ability for ai to create real branches and better ux to timeline manipulation. This is what my ibgib protocol is about, and it turns out that this is only **one** incredibly novel feature that this approach enables. There are other possibilities though...But right now zero people are actually even questioning the god of git.

[@rokker333]

I am 52 years old dev vet. I have used almost every centralized scm since the 1990s. Perforce, ClearCase, cvs, svn, rcs, vss, tfs. When git came out it took a me while to wrap my head around it. It took me almost 2 years until I felt comfortable to switch to git as the preferable scm back in the days. It is such a superior system and imo it is on the same impact level as linux for server systems. It is unbelievable that no big company (Microsoft, IBM, and others) were able to do such a superior system with all the money and resources spend on commercial scm systems in those days.

[@WojciechowskaAnna]

because in big companies developers have managers. Managers usually have very low technical skills and constantly fragment developers job. Its really hard to make any development project with desired quality while having managers - because they are usually interested in making things done, not in performance and even rare in any accuracy. I have never heard about manager or company bragging about accuracy, solidit or real performance. Most company barely do things that work in 80% of cases in very low scope, and crash and underperform in all corner cases

[@spawnterror]

@@WojciechowskaAnna This is a very good take on it. I have the same observations.

[@vrajpal-jhala]

​​@@WojciechowskaAnna excellent observation. I realised that, working in a service based company, in 6 months!

[@imgmgo]

How Linus talked about the politics of networks of trust really painted a picture of the power of the individual in distributed systems.

[@WeAreBlank18]

“Would I trust you, Google, with my data? HECK no. Not a day in my life.” TO THEIR FACE!!! What a gangster.

[@moussaadem7933]

And this was ~17 years ago

[@RayZde]

Another gift to the world hes given.

[@dream_emulator]

Crazy that "normal" people have no idea how much of the everyday things of their digital lives rely on this guy and his work.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

not really, just hype.

[@klauszinser]

Yes. I think he got some stocks from ..linux company. So he has some financial outcome. All of us benefit from his work.

[@sub-harmonik]

@@MrEnsiferum77 what do you use? mercurial?

[@yashwanth.chaudhari339]

@@MrEnsiferum77 insecure

[@ProBloggerWorld]

Linus really needs more credit for his invaluable work. Git is not a Source Control Software, it is the best tool to collaboratively work together on information. Snapshots and versioning are just features. The creative genius is the underlying model that fosters communication with minimal handover overhead.

[@Kokurorokuko]

I think he gets plenty of credit. No one questions his contribution to software world.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

it's just hype, for most of the projects u don't need it.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

@jamesclark5654 someone has to. just saying that people never ever experienced git at scale, git rebase and git commit are not comments u need git or any scm/svn system. and yes u need more patches than snapshots on daily basis.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

@jamesclark5654 linus is the one discredit cvs, and today team with 5+ developers on crap web apps can't merge properly codebase, they don't even can rebase 100+ files if some bigger merge conflicts arise.

[@orlagh277]

​@jamesclark5654you're giving him too much credit. Creator of cvs wouldn't be trying to convince people not to use source control at all. Source control is awesome even on solo projects, but he's probably against it because he can't figure out how to use it.

[@maxdemontbron9720]

Who else is here because the algorithms?

[@JD-hq1kn]

Haha 😅

[@automatescellulaires8543]

what other reasons could we have to be there really ? I mean, unless you are a historian or something.

[@Michael-dx8qz]

Who isnt

[@strengthtechnique6571]

me

[@ibgib]

I apologize, the algorithm showing this is my fault. I've been trying to show people that git is a local maximum natural monopoly. Its technical debt is now (20 years later) costing us in working more efficiently with AI (and other humans). This stems largely from a) the repo-level granularity and b) out-of-band metadata e.g. config, commit msgs, issue tracking, etc. If we had sub-repo level granularity and self-similar data + metadata, we could more easily leverage ai + ide solutions. Just think about failure of all existing solutions beyond simple, small colocated changes. The real solution is the ability for ai to create real branches and better ux to timeline manipulation. This is what my ibgib protocol is about, and it turns out that this is only **one** incredibly novel feature that this approach enables. There are other possibilities though...But right now zero people are actually even questioning the god of git.

[@fernansd]

Great talk! It feels great to know how the got to be. Must've been awesome to work at Google during those years. So many great talks. Random recommendation from KZbin in 2024 at 3 am.

[@bbuggediffy]

21:35 Bertram Gilfoyle

[@ManavAgarwal-n9u]

ahhaa...I am not the only one who noticed that.😂

[@TallesDiCunto]

Wow lol

[@Dizzymack1]

Im glad someone else saw him

[@angrybirds2472]

this post is 10 years old, what was the date of this talk? GIT is one of the amazing open source imaginings of the modern web STILL to this day!

[@navithefairy]

It says it right there on the first frame, May 3, 2007.

[@friedrichmyers]

2007, it is right there.

[@nicholasmaniccia1005]

lol 10 people liked this... Idk maybe they weren't paying attention and got distracted right after they clicked on the video.

[@GabrielOshiro]

I just wished KZbin had this video in 2007...

[@dewalashape1224]

This dude could own the world but doesnt. All my respect to Linus.

[@jt8251]

Wow. I had only been married for 5 months when this video was recorded. Those were early days at Google. Crazy how times flies.

[@automatescellulaires8543]

i wasn't born yet.

[@p0pka_enota]

My first VSC was SVN in 2008 and I was liking it quite a lot. Pretty soon I switched to git and was even happier. Can you imagine how shocked I was when in 2017 I joined a company that used CVS?!! I worked there for 9 mo. And I hadn't figure out how that thing works. It was my only time when I couldn't get into a technology. At all. I think it is probably some generational block. I never had any serious trouble with anything else even though I've done some very diverse stuff from high level programming to reverse engineering. And still I feel incompatible with CVS.

[@tefkah]

damn is it really that bad? I'm kind of morbidly curious about trying it out now haha

[@p0pka_enota]

@@tefkah Short answer - yes. But when I worked in that company, there were a couple more factors pushing my morale down. So theoretically if you approach it with some positive energy like roleplaying an IT archeologist, you may have a different experience than me. But I'd say that CVS nowadays is in category of esoteric tech. If you're up to smth like this, better try brainfuck, it's fun.

[@MikkoRantalainen]

The video quality of this clip seems like a VHS copy of a Betamax copy of a VHS copy of the original performance.

[@orlagh277]

Or it's just 2006~

[@MachoMaster]

AFAIR it was first released on Google Video.

[@LostieTrekieTechie]

It's called standard definition

[@MikkoRantalainen]

@@LostieTrekieTechie Well compressed SD video has much much higher quality.

[@pealock]

There are some unusual visual artifacts. The black levels look high contrast which could be the result of multi-medium copying? Who knows.

[@BoolFalse]

one of the most important things in the world

[@NOCTRN_]

this was easier to watch than an episode of the sopranos

[@nichohells]

You should try The Wire💀

[@xellestar]

?

[@NOCTRN_]

@@xellestar Oh, im sorry. DId that go over your head?

[@NOCTRN_]

@@nichohells Been wanting to get into that one. I've heard nothing but good things.

[@xellestar]

@@NOCTRN_ "yes, please explain"

[@cd1131]

Wtf, he also invented Git? 🤯

[@GrandePirataCibernetico]

he didn't invent, he made it better.

[@lloydbush]

​@@GrandePirataCibernetico As far as I know, he wrote it completely from scratch

[@somebody-anonymous]

At 12:16 for example he says he wrote it (in two weeks)

[@GrandePirataCibernetico]

The Approach Linus used is unique for Open Source Software that time, they used to use email lists and diff and gzipped tarballs before git came, just type: man 7 gitcore-tutorial; in any Linux computer with git to know how it works.

[@AloisMahdal]

@@lloydbush he wrote it but it was heavily inspired by Mercurial, if I recall (i haven't got to the part of the talk but i remember the history that way)

[@captainchaos3667]

When this was posted ten years ago it was already seven years old, and now suddenly KZbin is recommending it. What's going on?

[@ab8jeh]

8:00 Just comedy gold. Brilliant.

[@ScreenProductions]

1.Mark Zuckerberg original Facebook presentation to very low attendance at Harvard 2.Ryan Dahl original Node.js presentation at JSConf 3.Linus Torvald original git presentation at Google All classics because very few understood at the time the impact all these projects would have in the future 🎉

[@Ipadstands]

Very interesting talk. Thanks for posting

[@Savageboi506]

In a few days this talk will be 10 years old...

[@cryp0g00n4]

git is the basis for bitcoin

[@NOCTRN_]

youre a real pos

[@satyamgupta5671]

It became

[@raayaansahu2525]

bro oh my god this is literally 10 years old now

[@MrDarkoiV]

@@raayaansahu2525 The upload is 10 years old now, the talk itself is 17 years old ;')

[@RedSntDK]

Apparently this took place on May 3rd, 2007.

[@darren8453]

Linus Torvalds: git cannot handle extremely large repositories Narrator: gir could, in fact, handle very large repositories and would be modified to handle the entire windows source tree.

[@javajav3004]

idk seems like a fad :P

[@fio_mak]

So...the algorithm has finally hit you with this!

[@jtij497]

This needs more views

[@cannaroe1213]

21:32 "Questions?" "HOW U DO DIS?" "Huh?" "----" Oh he went away." "----" "How'd u do dis... hm.. well here is a real-world example:"

[@liubomyrchahoub7271]

"Nobody actually creates perfect code the first time around, except me, but there's only one of me, right?" Linus Torvalds Quotes of the greatest

[@GameDev-Rainbow]

This video was proudly recorded on a potato

[@ryuji_terix]

“Nobody has been able to crack sha1”

[@ardj999]

"I think most of you are completely incompetent" so based.

[@96merluzzo]

bro was talking as if Git would've changed the daily life of programmers or smthg smh

[@MrEnsiferum77]

not mine, i hate it, and i'm using because policy company crap, not that i like it... even for the microservices we building we hardly need it...

[@Sammysapphira]

@@MrEnsiferum77 LMAO hello again boomer. It's crazy how wrong you are.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

@@Sammysapphira Not wrong as git submodules.

[@sub-harmonik]

@@Sammysapphira it's probably not a boomer but someone who has only ever done small personal projects

[@Jabberwockybird]

I mean, git is nice, but if you were using SVN or something, would there be a fundamental difference, or just a convenience difference in how devs work?

[@dansanger5340]

Biggest mistake was the "checkout" command. It's confusingly named, since you aren't checking out anything (library metaphor implies exclusive access), and it's overloaded to do multiple distinct things. The mistake was finally addressed with addition of "switch" and "restore" commands. Probably the only reason we were stuck with it for so long is because it made sense to Linus at one time.

[@ajcgpol]

He explains in the beginning, git got easier to use thanks to other people involved in the project. He prefers using the "plumbing" commands. So `checkout` does "everything" because at the plumbing level changing branches or bringing up an older version of file X is just a matter of changing pointers - which is the main operation of `checkout`

[@LordChen]

Lone opinion. I saw no point to add a command that is, effectively, an alias to a few.

[@tefkah]

switch and restore are great. much easier to understand

[@TheBacktimer]

That was a real fun talk

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Now 17 years old.

[@vladshcherbakov3112]

17 years later, I went back to university and use git for my homework...

[@techaddictdude]

Why is this recommended to everyone in 2024?

[@chnmille]

Hello from the future

[@ToxicTechmaker]

34:55 that sounds like Gabe Newell so much lol

[@vimalk78]

in the github age aren't we back to using centralized repositories where a few people have commit access?

[@darren8453]

Yes and no. There's no politics around making changes, was his point. If you want to centralise control of your version of a repository, that's fine, and you can still allow others to fork and make whatever changes they think are useful and try to get it merged upstream. Most don't, but that's because of intrinsic network effects, not a limitation of the git model itself.

[@SomethingOrganic-m7e]

About time KZbin holy crap

[@DonutSurprise]

The compression artifacts midway into the video are reaaally bad...

[@hsk2978]

I'm old enough to remember SVN. It was hard for me to switch to GIT.

[@peter.g6]

Yes. But it would be impossible to switch back.

[@toby9999]

I was still using SVN last year. I've also used CVS. I prefered SVN. I dont like Git. It's just way too complex.

[@Hexspa]

I still don’t know how to use git but I guess I’m learning

[@nathanaelmoh5848]

Freecodecamp just uploaded a full tutorial on it some days ago. It's really good.

[@vadymrostok]

Epic.

[@dipdowel]

My like to this video is number 486 🎉

[@Here0s0Johnny]

How did people live before git?

[@MrEnsiferum77]

Far better, the best software apps were written before git, it's just hype, like jira, like agile, like react, like every today crap

[@Sammysapphira]

@@MrEnsiferum77 Take your medication grandpa

[@joseoncrack]

@@MrEnsiferum77 Usually better, indeed. People used to sit together for interactive merging sessions (which doubled as code reviews), instead of using a tool that will auto-merge stuff in a lot of cases, breaking horribly, or not being able to merge and letting you take care of that yourself until, uh, it breaks too. I find Mercurial a better tool. But that's similar - it shouldn't be used as a replacement for brains.

[@Jabberwockybird]

SVN. Git is better, but it's not like there was nothing, and then suddenly on the 8th day, God spoke and there was git. It's an iteration on other verson control concepts

[@joseoncrack]

@@Jabberwockybird Yes of course, and as I mentioned Mercurial, it's definitely not the first distributed one either. Linus wrote it to fit his own particular needs for maintaining the Linux kernel, and that appears to work quite well in that context, alhough, paradoxically, he uses it in ways that are quite different from what most people do with git these days.

[@maskahleo]

was this the first git tutorial?

[@BK-hn6jc]

Is that Gilfoyle asking the first question?

[@KanjiCoder_RTFM]

I just know enough git to get by .

[@krystiankrueger3479]

Is CVS really that bad? I have never used it. And if it is, why is it that bad?

[@NostraDavid2]

Imagine having a flaky internet connection, because you're on the move. It's now super hard to commit because you're not committing locally. You're committing to a central server, so now you're either spamming the commit button in the hope it'll go through or you're stuck not being able to do anything at all.

[@NostraDavid2]

Want to send a patch? Go through the server. Want to share a branch? Go through the server. Server is down? You're now fucked. Git has none of these problems, because it's distributed.

[@wirito]

If Linus says it is bad then it is bad. He has the authority to make such statement.

[@toby9999]

No. CVS and SVN are rather similar from a user perspective. Git is the odd man out. Git is overly complicated in practice, though it's fine as a local revision control system. It gets real crazy when using it remotely with a load of feature branches... which seems to be how many people use it.

[@toby9999]

​​@@NostraDavid2Git has the same problems when the server is down, or if the network connection is lost. How would you share a Git branch without a connect to the "server" or whatever you want to call it? I work from home. If I lose connection, I lose access to the central repo.

[@egoat-xyz]

Humanity will study this moment in the near future.

[@-morrow]

what?

[@KevinKlien97]

Huh?

[@shuvaraj7251]

I am randomly here

[@automatescellulaires8543]

is it the place that the bethesda guy picked up the line "it just works" ?

[@Zmej420BlazeIt]

What's really wild is that Git may be the first useful implementation of a decentralized blockchain.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

No it's not, u have plenty of proto blockchain systems, or decentralized banking systems before git is just hype for liberal developers, maybe just make sense in linux kernel world. Using it everywhere today, doesn't mean u need it.

[@orlagh277]

​@@MrEnsiferum77what's liberal about it? Maybe be a good conservative and email your changes to everyone if git is so bad

[@Sherukka]

I learned to hate the interface to git

[@maxmustermann5590]

Funny how sceptical people where that today all use git lol

[@MrEnsiferum77]

use it because company policy crap, not that they like, most of the crap from git u don't need, it's just hype

[@orlagh277]

​@@MrEnsiferum77use it because it's easy to use and Linus was right that it can change how you work.

[@MrEnsiferum77]

@@orlagh277 never ever changed my way, or thinking about code push and merge, really it's used most of the time as uploading code to file zilla... people just throw new commits instead trying to resolve it, and do some merge conflicts... btw scalable problems in developments are solved with CQRS patterns, why not in git to push just new commits when can't solve 100+ files merging experimental branch onto dev/main

[@ashwanimattoo3124]

What about IBM Clearcase

[@alexguitarwatson3215]

I had to use clearcase about 10 yesrs ago and i hated it. It’s bloated and just gets in your way with your work flow.

[@Sonsequence]

26:59 pushes Linus to admit that in his decentralized utopia, there's actually a master node and it's Linus' computer. Maybe that's when Preston-Werner realised he should make github.

[@joseoncrack]

Compared to a purely centralized system, at least it allows developers to work on their own branches and still have some version tracking, until they push to the central server. But in the end, most people pretty much use git as a centralized system. I've seen many companies use it this way - mainly to track developers' work on a daily basis, rather than make their life easier. It's often used as a micro-management tool.

[@orlagh277]

Only from this talk I realized you can pull from each other with git, pretty dope on paper, but yeah seems like most projects default to having a central server.

[@joseoncrack]

@@orlagh277 Well yes, as a distributed system, that's one of the points. Now very few actually do that. Most people seem to be using git as SVN, only pretending they use a modern tool with all the hype, to look cool. The fun part is that even Linus doesn't use git as most other people do, and the "typical" github workflows (github is not git, but github has become the defacto "tool" for many too, and that influences the way they see and use git) have nothing to do with how the Linux Kernel is managed.

[@RedSntDK]

And now Github is owned by Microsoft..

[@Reichstaubenminister]

Yes, the project he made uses his computer as a master node because most people agree on that. If everybody decided to send their patches to someone else and distros stopped using the main upstream, the master node practically wouldn't be him anymore.

[@ALZlper]

56:53 Blockchain mentioned

[@SawyerFM]

Is Linus Satoshi?

[@RobTFirefly]

This video needs captions.

[@BottleOfCoke]

Press the cc button in the top right corner if you areon mobile, bottom right on browser.

[@larmondoflairallen4705]

I pronounce "gif" with a hard "G:.

[@ShortAudit]

Who’s here in 2024?!

[@sub-harmonik]

literally everyone lmao

[@ddpxl]

legend

[@djtomoy]

i still don’t really understand this thing

[@sanjaycse9608]

Tf i'm watching after 10 yrs

[@РодионЧаускин]

Davis Laura Walker Maria Garcia Helen

[@MikkoRantalainen]

1:05:50 "Read the sources first and then look at the mailing list" - after saying that it's about 80K lines of high performance C code.

[@katta_musings]

Magnus is Linus of chess world it seems.

[@Junglewarfare]

Windows 11 brought me here

[@toby9999]

I like Windows 11, but my phone brought me here.

[@GuzikPL4]

36:30 some things never change, huh?

[@OrbitalCookie]

Organizations take git and enforce rules that ensure whole release process is as centralized as possible.

[@GuzikPL4]

@@OrbitalCookie I was talking about flickering windows :P

[@MaestroCipher]

Too much arrogance, Linus. Demonstrate how your divine tool is better than others, so we could make conclusion about its superiority, not just claim it.

[@nichohells]

I mean, he isn't wrong xd

[@MaestroCipher]

@@nichohells He is arrogant and disrespectful, my comment is mainly about that

[@pieterrossouw8596]

His style worked for him. We use stuff he created, built or influenced daily. A more meek guy equally brilliant might have never succeeded.

[@ZaKrlaw]

he did demonstrate it, through the examples he talked about... I think you have some problems with your rational faculties

[@Levi_OP]

Did you watch the video? Id agree that he's a little confident without providing any reason, but he spends the entire talk giving examples of why git is better

[@SBF_FTX593]

Git was a mistake.

[@moussaadem7933]

Why

[@tiemen88]

This guy is annoying.

[@BottleOfCoke]

Nobody cares about your opinion.

[@seanmchugh2866]

git is a plague. proof linus couldnt design his way out of a lucid dream

[@MrEnsiferum77]

Today git didn't cope to the hype, just overused, like jira, like react, just use something but don't know why. When git can merge code from multiple developers from different pcs and work on zero day production, like DOOM than we can talk.

[@orlagh277]

It sounds like either you don't know what you're saying or you haven't taken your meds. Or both. Git can merge from different devs, wtf is "zero day production" and DOOM is like 30 years old

[@MrEnsiferum77]

@@orlagh277 DOOM is zero day production, bug free, and code was merged without any conflicts. Never ever can do that crooked git

[@e621_]

@@MrEnsiferum77 what is a zero day production

[@CurrentlyObsessively]

​@@e621_Good question...