Do Developers Really Know How to Use Git Commands? A Large-scale Study Using Stack Overflow

Abstract

Git, a cross-platform and open-source distributed version control tool, provides strong support for non-linear development and is capable of handling everything from small to large projects with speed and efficiency. It has become an indispensable tool for millions of software developers and is the de facto standard of version control in software development nowadays. However, despite its widespread use, developers still frequently face difficulties when using various Git commands to manage projects and collaborate. To better help developers use Git, it is necessary to understand the issues and difficulties that they may encounter when using Git. Unfortunately, this problem has not yet been comprehensively studied. To fill this knowledge gap, in this paper, we conduct a large-scale study on Stack Overflow, a popular Q&A forum for developers. We extracted and analyzed 80,370 relevant questions from Stack Overflow, and reported the increasing popularity of the Git command questions. By analyzing the questions, we identified the Git commands that are frequently asked and those that are associated with difficult questions on Stack Overflow to help understand the difficulties developers may encounter when using Git commands. In addition, we conducted a survey to understand how developers learn Git commands in practice, showing that self-learning is the primary learning approach. These findings provide a range of actionable implications for researchers, educators, and developers.

Richen: Automated enrichment of Git documentation with usage examples and scenarios

“…However, "git" covers broad topics, and thus some questions tagged with 'git' are not related to Git commands. 1 To alleviate this problem, Richen further classifies and analyzes the extracted posts to find relevant posts containing examples of using Git commands, which is detailed in the next subsection.…”

“…For example, Ross et al 2,53 argue that there are deficiencies in the design of Git based on their understanding of Git and propose alternative designs. Yang et al 1 conducted an empirical study to understand the problems and difficulties that developers have encountered in using Git commands. These efforts indicate that the use of Git commands can be difficult for developers.…”

“…general, according to a recent large-scale empirical study of posts on Stack Overflow, numerous developers have experienced difficulties with Git commands in practice. 1 One of the most common issues is that developers do not know how to use a specific Git command, for example, not being clear about what functions the command can offer or how the command can be used in combination with other commands. For example, one user on Stack Overflow states his/her problem with Git as: I'll preface this by mentioning that I've been working with Git for years, but my knowledge is limited to very basic workflows.…”

“…3 A significant reason that makes it difficult for developers to master Git commands is that the documentation of Git is not comprehensive enough, or one might even say, lacking. Here, Git documentation refers to the documentation resources available on the official site of Git, 1 which mainly includes the official manual and Pro Git book. 4 As we all know, documentation is essential for software tools, as it is the key material for systematic training and learning.…”

“…4 As we all know, documentation is essential for software tools, as it is the key material for systematic training and learning. As studied and noted by Yang et al, 1 documentation is one of the primary sources for developers to learn how to use Git commands. Additionally, documentation can also be used as the source for searching answers when developers are experiencing difficulties.…”