On Building Git for Lawyers

This person is 100% correct that git will never see adoption outside the tech industry.

My partner worked as a veterinarian for several years, and it was fascinating to see how vets use computers. These were brilliant people - I knew three who did literal brain surgery. But they just had zero patience for computers. They did not want to troubleshoot, figure out how something worked or dive deeper. Ever. They didn't care! They were busy saving the lives of people's pets.

It was a good reminder there are many smart people who do not know computers work and do not care to. A good startup acknowledges this reality.

I find this excuse depressing. We live in the age of computers. If you don't know how to use one you shouldn't be employed where they're necessary. Rather than making a dumbed down workforce we should be building people's skills up.

Git for normies already exists even MS Word has document versioning. If they cannot be bothered to use the software and technology they need to then they should be unemployed.

We also live in the age of architecture. Should everyone who drives over a bridge or work in an office know how those things were constructed and how they are maintained? Should everyone be trained extensively on the infrastructure that gets water to their taps?

No, but if you directly use those things for your job, you probably should. For example, if you're a home inspector, you should have decent knowledge about plumbing. Even though you're not a plumber.

If you don't have at least some knowledge, you probably won't be a very good inspector. If you have more knowledge, then you'd be better.

If you require document versioning, you should know, at least a bit, how to use a Version Control Software. You don't need to know the internals, but enough to use it.

a home inspector inspects homes. a veterinarian inspects animals. she does not inspect computers.

you could restrict their software movements to the bare essentials for their work and they’d be happier for it. hell, i’m sure most would be happier with no gui if the interface provided them with only what they need. and most need just a place to create a document, type it in, commit the document, view it, and relay it to storage or another user. then a browser to look things up.

but we live in the age of general-purpose computing where people need to use general programs thoroughly unadapted for their specialized jobs, forcing the user to coordinate multiple contexts, which should really be coordinated by the machine. most jobs could be done with nano and sendmail. add an form input field editor and selector and it’s golden. if something else is needed, it should be one command away.

it’s not for them to inspect computers. it’s for devs and enterprises to create software systems such that the tech-naive user would have no need to ever touch anything outside of what they need.

A veterinarian should also be able to inspect their tools, to some extent. I expect a homebuilder to at least kind of understand how a hammer works.

A computer is a tool. I don't expect them to know everything, but I do expect them to know a little.