Software Architecture

You Don't Need to Be "Into Git"

October 20, 2026

And the people who are really into git can't handle that

I once watched a senior developer spend 45 minutes explaining interactive rebasing to a junior who just wanted to undo a typo in a commit message.

The junior's eyes glazed over around minute eight. By minute twenty, she was mentally composing her grocery list. By minute forty, she was questioning her career choices. The senior developer never noticed. He was having the time of his life.

This is the git community in a nutshell.

Here's my confession: I know maybe five git commands. Clone, add, commit, push, pull. On a wild day, maybe a checkout. That's it. That's the whole toolkit. It works. It has always worked. Nothing has ever caught fire because I didn't understand the directed acyclic graph underlying my version history.

"But do you even know what a DAG is?"

Yes. I know what a DAG is. I also know what a carburetor is. I still don't rebuild my own engine. For those who don't: "Git DAG refers to the Directed Acyclic Graph data structure that serves as the architectural backbone of Git, representing the repository's commit history."

The git enthusiasts - and I say this with genuine affection for their passion - have a specific blindspot. They cannot fathom that a competent programmer might simply not care about git beyond its basic utility. To them, this is like a chef not caring about knives. To the rest of us, it's like a chef not caring about metallurgy.