When I see people commenting about git's simplicity it is not about data structures. It is about commands. And that really tells me little about simplicity. Anyone can manipulate the argument structure for a function and positional parameters in a command line interface. The real question is what does the function do, and how does it accomplish it?
The first thing that struck me about git is the apparent use of SHA1 hashing as a basic foundation for the whole system. Maybe that's not even true and no doubt there is much more to it. I'm not out to become an expert in version control nor to understand git completely because I only use it out of necessity. Older systems work just as well for my purposes.
I do not need many advanced features in version control; I'm using version control on a personal basis, not as a contributor to some highly dynamic project with many other contributors. Plain old rcs is still my main tool when I need the ability to move between versions. And diff still seems to work for detecting and printing differences after so many years.
But to me, as a user, the compilation process of any program is also part of any purported "simplicity of design". Programs that compile easily and quickly and are easy to modify score very highly in my book. I am constantly looking for more programs that fit this description.
I was not aware that there were many implementations of git.
I'll now be looking for some other implementations. On github of course.
