Git has poor design because it forces users to learn its model of things rather than meeting users where they are. There’s way too many leaky abstractions that pop out as soon as you stray from the happy path, and you might not even know you’re straying when you do it.

Instead, the complexity of your mental model should scale with the complexity of the thing you’re trying to do. Writing a “hello world” in Java does not require a mental model of all of the powerful things Java can do.

We want CS 101 students to use version control but for a lot of them it will also be their first time using a CLI and a programming and also the underlying CS concept.