So You Think You Know Git - FOSDEM 2024

Name: So You Think You Know Git - FOSDEM 2024
Uploaded: 2024-02-08T15:06:29Z
Duration: 2820 s
Description: Scott Chacon's FOSDEM 2024 talk on lesser-known Git tips and tricks: useful config settings, older and newer commands, monorepo and big-repo features, and recent GitHub additions. It closes with why he is now building GitButler, followed by a Q&A.

GGitButler1 video here

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1.6M views · Feb 8, 2024 · 47:00 · 1 HN recommender · 4 mentions · discussed 2024–2025

Scott Chacon's FOSDEM 2024 talk on lesser-known Git tips and tricks: useful config settings, older and newer commands, monorepo and big-repo features, and recent GitHub additions. It closes with why he is now building GitButler, followed by a Q&A.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters point to it as a well-regarded tour of newer, lesser-known Git features, and it is among the most-watched engineering talks of 2024.

“Great tech talk covering some of the newer lesser-known git features”HN comment, 2025

Testing, debugging & developer tools Talk #git #config #monorepo #rerere #fosdem #gitbutler

What Hacker News said 4

RecommendscraftkillerSep 2025

“Great tech talk covering some of the newer lesser-known git features”

Covers newer lesser-known git features.

Full comment

You could do a blobless or treeless clone link Combined with --depth=1 and the --no-checkout / --sparse-checkout flow that the GP already described. I just tested on the emacs repo, left column is disk usage of just the `.git` folder inside: Shallow clones (depth=1): 124K: Treeless clone depth=1 with no-checkout 308K: Blobless clone depth=1 with no-checkout 12M: Treeless clone depth=1 sparse checkout of "doc" folder 12M: Blobless clone depth=1 sparse checkout of "doc" folder 53M: Treeless clone depth=1 non-sparse full checkout 53M: Blobless clone depth=1 non-sparse full checkout 53M: Regular clone with depth=1 Non-shallow clones: 54M: Treeless clone with no-checkout 124M: Blobless clone with no-checkout 65M: Treeless clone sparse checkout of "doc" folder 135M: Blobless clone sparse checkout of "doc" folder 107M: Treeless clone with non-sparse full checkout 177M: Blobless clone with non-sparse full checkout 653M: Full regular git clone with no flags Great tech talk covering some of the newer lesser-known git features: this video

Cites itdiarrheaFeb 2024

“I remember watching your FOSDEM talk on YouTube”

FOSDEM talk asking whether people know and use rerere.

Full comment

I remember watching your FOSDEM talk on YouTube, where you asked whether people have rerere turned on _and_ know what it is, in one question. I have it on, but only the faintest of clues what it is! Just git things, I suppose. this video

Cites itazangruJul 2024

“Microsoft uses git to version control Windows.”

Says Microsoft uses git for Windows with 3.5 million files.

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> I'd say that perhaps Git is unsuitable above certain thresholds on numbers of files Scott Chacon in a recent talk about git[0] said that Microsoft uses git to version control Windows. They have ~3.5 million files in the repo, which is about 300 gigabytes in size. There are some tweaks to improve git performance in those scenarios; but still, I'd say it's a pretty impressive threshold. [0] - this video

Cites itpistoriuspFeb 2025

“is at 1.3m million views”

Notes the talk's view count of 1.3 million.

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I know these are conferences that they track, but I happen to know the Scott's talk from FOSDEM titled "So You Think You Know Git?" is at 1.3m million views: this video