HACKER Q&A
📣 evolve2k

Ways to make Git and Git(hub/lab) easier for non-tech folk?


I'm helping a distributed group of community organisers collaborate on some collective markdown files hosted in github.

As I coder beyond the initial complicated nature of Git, it can be a greatly empowering tool to enable distributed, open work practices amongst people who have often never met in person.

But the default git interface over CLI remains complicated and takes time to teach and understand even to people wanting to get into software development.

I'm seeing hope in newer markdown driven interfaces like Obsidian which help with text based authoring but in itself it's not directly about making working with git less complicated.

Does anyone know of approaches,tools, methods that can reduce the barriers to non-tech folk participating in git / git(hub/lab) projects?


  👤 armchairhacker Accepted Answer ✓
Honestly, it might be better to use a realtime collaboration service. If you need to you could automatically sync this with the GitHub version by pulling updates on a schedule.

I've used hackmd.io for real-time collaboration in Markdown. They even offer an open-source self-hosted version, https://github.com/hackmdio/codimd. There may be other services as well.


👤 roneoo
Gitlab provides several web interfaces:

- a basic WYSIWYG when you click on "Edit"

- Gitpod and Gitlab IDE, based on Vs code in the browser, allowing custom settings and extension


👤 dangarbri3
You could look into some git GUIs, I'm only aware of gitk and github's app. But I'd bet if you look around you could find a gui that abstracts "git" away from git.

👤 mardiyah
Isn't your job to write the script of all git commands in to turn to be a working tool?