On Tuesday 22 July 2008, Scott Chacon wrote: > If anyone has any tips on how they think git should be taught, issues > they are asked a lot, problems newbies tend to have, something they > wish there were a screencast for or was better documented, etc - > please do contact me so I can incorporate it. You should at least take a look at this thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/88698 (even though it goes off-topic after a while...) > If anyone has any tips on how they think git should be taught... It seems there are primarily two ways to teach Git: 1. Top-down: Start with simple use cases and commands. Teach people a minimal, but necessary set of porcelain commands to get them started. Stay _far_ away from plumbing commands and most of the command options. 2. Bottom-up: Start with how Git structures the data. Talk about blobs, trees, commits, refs, how everything is connected, and how various Git commands query and manipulate this structure. This _may_ involve a fair amount of plumbing commands, especially when discovering how the more complicated high-level commands manipulate the structure. Some people seem to prefer the first approach, other people prefer the other approach. Both paths lead to enlightenment ;). In many cases a bit of both may be useful. HOWEVER, I think it is _very_ important to keep in mind that these are two _different_ approaches, and the contexts in which they are taught should be kept separate. I would almost suggest splitting your website down the middle and make the difference between top-down and bottom-up immediately visible with, say, a different background color, or something else that immediately tells the user what "track" they are following... BTW, I think what you're doing is good and important (and I've already enjoyed some of your gitcasts). Keep up the good work! :) Have fun! ...Johan -- Johan Herland, <johan@xxxxxxxxxxx> www.herland.net -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
