Yeah! This is a great tool and it's been around for a while. Nice little puzzles and good to have some kind of visual representation. But Devlands can do so much more than visualize the commit graph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF7FnK1Gml8
Kinda! But really only in the sense that they're both "games" related to Git.
Devlands can do so much more (it's can simulate, run, and visualize any command or scenario that can happen in Git within the context of any local repo) and in a much more intuitive way.
Hey there! Never heard of Luanti, but the reasons I chose to make this in Pygame using this particular open-source voxel engine implementation are outlined in the post :D
Yes totally agree. Curious if you think visual or gamified tools might have been useful to get an initial grasp on the types of concepts you mentioned? And if so where they might fit in?
Hard agree. I love this mindset! If you put a tool in your toolbag you should know how to use it.
Git is definitely abstract and hard to get the hang of but totally worth it - pays dividends in terms of the options it puts at your disposal. And the stimulating nature of learning how it works so that you can think for yourself to figure out a solution, instead of just memorizing 3 commands and running to AI for help when you get a little stuck.
Version control is one of our main tools for interacting with other developers. Having a rich understanding of your version control software often helps to find solutions and workarounds for problems which would otherwise result in needless conflict.
That's such a relatable story - and I feel like it highlights something I've been thinking about a lot while working on these visual and gamified Git tools.
There's this whole class of capable engineers (some at senior/staff levels!) who just never had to build good Git habits or learn how to think about the different options that Git's command set provides, because their workflow didn't demand it.
Curious - do you think that's mostly a tooling/culture thing, or more of a learning gap, where they just never had a reason to dive deeper?
Part of why I'm making these tools is to explore if a more visual approach might make some of those concepts stick better. But curious what you've seen actually work in practice for helping people improve their Git skills.