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Comment by qznc | Hacker News Reader

I also have aliases in my shell instead of git aliases.

    st    git status ...
    gl    git log ...
    gd    git diff ...
    gg    gitg
    gup   git pull --rebase
    gb    git branch

The dots mean there are more arguments. The point is, every once in a while I analyse my shell history and add aliases for the most used commands. Looking at it now, it seems I should add aliases for `git push` and `vi Makefile`.

I also have the aliases g for git, m for make, and v for vim.

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Yes, I have similar:

    gs    git status
    gp    git push
    gac   git commit -am 
    gc    git commit
    gcm   git commit -m
    gA    git add -A
    gC    git checkout
    ga    git add
    gd    git diff
    gm    git merge
    gmc   git merge --continue
    gpu   git pull
    grc   git rebase --continue

The only problem is that I cannot use git on anybody else's machine, the muscle memory is too strongly ingrained now. This is a common message:

    The program 'gs' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
    sudo apt install ghostscript

Which is better than if they have the same aliases as you, but they mean something else. I had an interesting time a while ago until I understood that my coworker uses 'st' for stash instead of status.

It also means that you can't use any common tools that use the same letters as your shortcuts.

True, if I ever need to use ghostscript (whatever it is) in my day-to-day life, it'll be a trainwreck.

It's a ps/pdf toolkit type program. It is used by imagemagick as a backend for pdf conversion type stuff - so if you every need imagemagick you might find yourself in for some annoyance as well.

Aliases are only expanded in interactive shells so ImageMagick or any program that calls an executable from within a process will not have any issues.

I'm actually using them as git aliases, not bash command aliases.

You can, you just have to prefix them with a hyphen, e.g.:

  $ -gs

How much time does that actually save? I find that for any given task, I spend far more time reading and thinking than I do typing, and of the time spent typing, most of it is spent typing arguments.

The shorter a command is, the fewer typos can be made. Many times have I typed `git stauts` or `git ocmmit`

Of course, my personal solution instead of aliases was to switch to using SourceTree.

I discovered https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck a while ago and now I kind of enjoy making typos like this.

For me, at least a day in 5 years: https://xkcd.com/1205/

I use `git diff` and `git log --graph --decorate --all --oneline` and `git status` so often, that it totally saves heaps of time. Especially the second one ― I usually type my `gl` somewhat subconsciously already; only afterwards I realize what I'm looking at, and start reading. That's possibly related to the fact that I commit very often, use many working branches, and then rebase -i (usually squashing and composing a good readable commit message) before publishing.

But anyway, if someone asks for help with "how to fix my mess in git", the absolutely first thing I do is exactly `git log --graph --decorate --all --oneline`, to start finding out visually what the mess actually is.

I have similar aliases and have a similar concern. I usually think "git status" when I type gs. This way I hope I would be able to work without my aliases somewhere else (even though it would take longer since I have to remember to type the whole command).

A few more I find useful:

    gdc      git diff --cached
    gg       git grep -n
    gss      git status -s
    glo      git log --oneline
    gamend   git commit --amend --no-edit

I have the exact same alias for git status and I'm very familiar with that error message!

A few more I live and die by:

    gf  git fetch --all; git fetch --tags
    gh  git log --oneline --abbrev-commit --all --graph --decorate

IIUC, the --abbrev-commit is unnecessary there, --oneline already does it. Makes the incantation possible to remember and type on a foreign console: "git log --graph --oneline --decorate --all"

edit: yep, per git help log:

  --oneline
    This is a shorthand for "--pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit"
    used together.

Thanks!

I find this reassuring as I sometimes feel behind the times for using command line git instead of some fancy WYSIWYG interface. Am I in a minority or not? Is command line the preferred way and if so is it more productive? I just do commits to master, I don't do fancy hotfixes, feature branches squashed to master or fancy bisects. Maybe a merge conflict in my colleague's CSS is as hard as it gets for me.

Seriously, the more complex your use case is, the better the command line gets.

Personally, I use mostly command line git and on occasion a little bit of gitk if I get lost between all the branches. I die a little (read: a lot) inside when I have to help my team members with git and they adamantly stick to TortoiseGit. It's a prime example of the UI improving discoverability at the expense of performance (and even then the individual actions tend to get lost between all the numerous possible actions).

This discussion got me thinking about my push habits. While I only have to type `g psh`, the actual process has more commands. I check that I'm on the correct branch, check which commits will get pushed, and maybe even the diffs of the commits. Sometimes I have to rebase, fixup, and squash stuff.

It is similar for committing, where checking diffs and partial adding is part of the process.

Using an IDE or GUI might help to streamline this. I do not use any, so I don't know if they do this.

Maybe I should analyse my shell history for sequences?

Maybe check this out? I use it all the time (the zsh integration). https://github.com/powerline/powerline

SCM Breeze does a nice job of this: https://github.com/scmbreeze/scm_breeze

Here is my own DSL. Interesting that it turns out we have similar aliases...

    alias ga='git add'
    alias gb='git branch'
    alias gbD='gb -D '
    alias gbc='gc -b '
    alias gbd='gb -d '
    alias gc='git checkout'
    alias gcm='git checkout master'
    alias gd='git diff '
    alias gdd='gd --cached'
    alias gdm='gd master...'
    alias ge='git grep -InE '
    alias gec='git branch --remotes --contains '
    alias geh='git log --all --oneline --decorate -G '
    alias gei='ge -i'
    alias gff='gh && gpr && gr && ghp'
    alias gfm='b=$(gw) && [[ "$b" != master ]] && gcm && gpr && gfu && gr && gc $b && unset b'
    alias gfr='git fetch && git rebase origin/master'
    alias gfu='git fetch upstream && git merge upstream/$(gw)'
    alias gh='git stash'
    alias gha='gh -k'
    alias ghp='gh pop'
    alias ghs='gh show -p '
    alias gl='git log --graph --decorate --all'
    alias gll='gl --pretty=format:"%C(yellow)%h %Cred%ad %Cblue%an%Cgreen%d %Creset%s" --relative-date'
    alias glll='gl --color --graph --pretty=format:'\''%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr)%C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset'\'' --abbrev-commit'
    alias gp='git pull '
    alias gpr='git pull origin $(gw)'
    alias gps='git push'
    alias gpt='gps --tags'
    alias gr='git push origin $(gw)'
    alias grr='git rebase -i HEAD~$(grrr | wc -l)'
    alias grrr='git rev-list master..'
    alias grt='gr --tags'
    alias gs='git status'
    alias gss='git show'
    alias gu='git config --get remote.origin.url'
    alias gv='git describe --abbrev --dirty --always --tags'
    alias gw='git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD 2>/dev/null'
    alias gx='git archive --format tar --remote '

I especially like the "grr" and "grrr" aliases. I have those days too...