I don't get JJ. Every time it's posted people gush about how JJ enables some super complicated workflow that I can't wrap my head around. I have a simple feature branch/rebase workflow in git that has served me well for decades so I guess I don't understand why I would want to complicate things with (in this case) an "octopus merge/megamerge". Wouldn't that make it more difficult to reason about the repository/history?
If you wrangle a lot of in flight changes that are not yet merged into your teams primary git repo, it's very helpful. I have some 10-30 changes in various states at any time. Sometimes they have dependencies on each other sometimes they don't. Placing them all into one branch can work but it's a lot less ergonomic in many ways. jj makes my life simpler because it accommodates my workflow in a way git doesn't.
Honestly, if you don't find it appealing you don't need to use it. I think a lot of folks don't find vim appealing and stick to vscode and that's okay too.
> I have some 10-30 changes in various states at any time. Sometimes they have dependencies on each other sometimes they don't.
This is the sort of scenario that leans me towards thinking tools are being praised by how they support major red flags in development flows.
Having dozens of changes in flight in feature branches that may or may not be interdependent is a major red flag. Claiming that a tool simplifies managing this sort of workflow sounds like you are mitigating a problem whose root cause is something else.
To me it reads like praising a tool for how it streamlines deployments to production by skipping all tests and deployment steps. I mean, sure. But doesn't this mask a far bigger problem? Why would anyone feel the need to skip checks and guardrails?
Every time I hear about this megamerge and stacked pr nonsense, it just smells to me. Like, why does your engineering organization have a culture where this sort of nonsense is required in the first place? Anytime I see articles like this gushing about how great tool XYZ is for stack merging and things like that, all I hear is "you don't have a culture where you can get someone looking at and mainlining your PR on the same day"
The jj lovers can go build their massive beautiful branches off in a corner, I'll be over here building an SDLC that doesn't require that.
Old man yells at cloud moment is over
Not all software is developed by one software organization.
Programs to manage “stacks of patches” go back decades. That might be hundreds that have accumulated over years which are all rebased on the upstream repository. The upstream repository might be someone you barely know, or someone you haven’t managed to get a response from. But you have your changes in your fork and you need to maintain it yourself until upstream accepts it (if they ever call back).
I’m pretty sure that the Git For Windows project is managed as patches on top of Git. And I’ve seen the maintainer post patches to the Git mailing list saying something like, okay we’ve been using this for months now and I think it’s time that it is incorporated in Git.[1]
I’ve seen patches posted to the Git mailing list where they talk about how this new thing (like a command) was originally developed by someone on GitHub (say) but now someone on GitLab (say) took it over and wants to upstream it. Maybe years after it was started.
Almost all changes to the Git project need to incubate for a week in an integration branch called `next` before it is merged to `master`.[1] Beyond slow testing for Git project itself, this means that downstream projects can use `next` in their automated testing to catch regressions before they hit `master`.
† 1: Which is kind of a like a “megamerge”
> incorporated in Git.[1]
Dangling footnote. I decided against adding one and forgot to remove it.
- [deleted]
It depends. We have pretty good review culture (usually same day rarely more than 24H), but some changes may need multiple rounds of review or might be have flaky tests that uncovers after a few hours. Also some work is experimental and not ready for pushing out for review. Sometimes I create a very large number of commits as part of a migration DND I can't get them all reviewed in parallel. It can be a lot of things. Maybe it happens more with monorepos.
All fair points, indeed I face each of the challenges you listed periodically myself. But it's never been often enough to feel like I need to seek out an entirely different toolchain and approach to manage them.
Well, fortunately Jujutsu isn’t an entirely different toolchain and/or approach. It’s one tool that’s git-compatible and is quite similar to it. But where it’s different, it’s (for me) better.
I'd really like to hear your argument about when single large PR is better than stacked PRs from both PR author and reviewers' perspectives
Why would you like git and not jj is beyond me, this must be something like two electric charges being the same and repelling themselves. It’s the same underlying data structure with a bit different axioms (conflicts allowed to be committed vs not; working tree is a commit vs isn’t).
Turns out these two differences combined with tracking change identity over multiple snapshots (git shas) allow for ergonomic workflows which were possible in git, just very cumbersome. The workflows that git makes easy jj also keeps easy. You can stop yelling at clouds and sleep soundly knowing that there is a tool to reach for when you need it and you’ll know when you need it.
> you don't have a culture where
Yeah, and? Not everyone is in control of the culture of the organization they work in. I suspect most people are not. Is everyone on HN CEOs and CTOs?
Temporarily embarrassed CEOs and CTOs
No, but there are a lot of them, and principal and staff engineers, and solo folks who would get to set the culture if they ever succeed.
A lot of people's taste making comes from reading the online discussions of the engineering literati so I think we need old folks yelling at clouds to keep us grounded.
I think the unspoken part is that the mess of commits is being produced by agents not people.
That’s why it’s always the same confusing hype when it’s discussed, because it’s AI/LLM hype effectively
I don't get git. Every time it's posted people gush about how git enables some super complicated workflow that I can't wrap my head around. I have a simple edit/undo workflow in my editor that has served me well for decades so I guess I don't understand...
There is a limit to how far one needs to abstract personally.
I don't layer my utensils for example, because a spoon is fit for purpose and reliable.
But if I needed to eat multiple different bowls at once maybe I would need to.
For my personal use case, git is fit for purpose and reliable, even for complex refactoring. I don't find myself in any circumstances where I think, gosh, if only I could have many layers of this going on at once.
Even if you're working on one single thread of development, jj is easier and more flexible than git though. That it works better for super complicated workflows is just a bonus.
If you think about it, git is really just a big undo/redo button and a big "merge 2 branches" button, plus some more fancy stuff on top of those primitives.
Who posts about git? Its one of those tools that just work and don´t need hype.
You haven’t helped anyone with this.
Even with that workflow jj can help a lot. Haven't you ever been annoyed by situations like, while working on a few features at once, having unrelated changes from different feature branches piling up in the stash? Or wanting to switch to another branch mid-rebase without losing your place? jj's working-copy-as-commit model and its first-class treatment of conflicts address those pain points.
No? You work on something and finish it. At most I have 2-3 feature branches open. If none are in review, I have commits in them with current work. Maybe I use the stash 2-3 times a year when I am heavily experimenting with different implementations.
Depending on people workflow/mindset we often face stacked branches, lots of fixup commits, and over the years new git commands and tricks emerged to deal with that but not in cohesive way I guess. JJ seems (I only tried it a short while long ago) to address just that.
I stick to basic workflows most of the time, and it's still much better.
I concur, seems that lately we’ve collectively forget about the KISS principle.
It's easy to forget that what's "simple" is a function of what tools we have. And our familiarity with them.
I love Jujutsu because it makes my work simpler, whatever kind of branching/merging structure I use. It just has a better model for me than git.
The thing is, JJ makes mega merges easy... Which opens paths to simple but powerful workflows that match reality better. Having multiple converging changes, or even separated bits of history for $reasons becomes ready without rebar and serializing PRs.
And better conflict resolution means it often becomes viable to just have mega merge add next release
Sounds like a SVN user complaining about git
> I don't get JJ. Every time it's posted people gush about how JJ enables some super complicated workflow that I can't wrap my head around.
This. Things like stacks and mega-merges are huge red flags, and seeing enthusiastic people praising how a tool is more convenient to do things that raise huge red flags is perplexing.
Let's entertain the idea of mega-merges, and assume a tool fixes all tool-related issues. What's the plan to review the changes? Because what makes mega merges hard is not the conflicts but ensuring the change makes sense.
I use jj but not mega merges. But as I understand it you're not going to push the merge itself for review. It allows you to work locally on multiple branches at once. But when ready you push the individual branch, pre merge, for review.
What's the red flag about a stack?