Why The GitHub Desktop Application Is Better

Using the CLI is a hard flex, but very unnecessary these days.

Photo by Jexo on Unsplash

Git and GitHub have been around for ages now. They have revolutionized working on projects together by creating a way to correctly implement changes using pull requests, branches, comparison, and merge features. And I am sure that most programmers even use it for solo projects (Just like me).

The Git CLI

This might be controversial to senior developers, but I think that the Git CLI is too hard to use for very new programmers. Most students I’ve worked with already have a difficult time using Github with a proper GUI, let alone if they need to remember all CLI options and commands.

git add [--verbose | -v] [--dry-run | -n] [--force | -f] [--interactive | -i] [--patch | -p]
	  [--edit | -e] [--[no-]all | --[no-]ignore-removal | [--update | -u]]
	  [--intent-to-add | -N] [--refresh] [--ignore-errors] [--ignore-missing] [--renormalize]
	  [--chmod=(+|-)x] [--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]]
	  [--] [<pathspec>…​]

You will not use most options shown here, but it sets the scene I think. So why should we still use it? Most IDEs have some sort of version control implemented anyway, and even if your IDE doesn’t, you should likely just use the Github desktop application. At least if you’re using Github…

The GitHub Client

The GitHub desktop application is released not too long ago. Still quite some months though. In my opinion, it might be the best visual tool for collaboration yet.

The application

Whenever you don’t have any local changes, this will be the screen you will see. There are some changes made on the repository and it is telling me to pull from origin, or from the repo itself. I am in branch ‘master’ and could quickly change it by clicking the big black button. I can quickly see any changes I have made.

changes made

The best thing is just the visual aspect of it. Instead of a black and white terminal, we have a full visual GUI with nice buttons we can use. It is such an easy to use and you barely have to think about what you’re doing.

Conclusion

Unless you’re very familiar with the CLI setup, you will most likely be better of using the GitHub desktop application, or even your IDEs built-in version control. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day.