`git log --graph` without `--oneline` is pretty hard to follow — that's not what I use, and it's not what I suggested.
With `--oneline`, it's not perfect but it's good enough to be useful — and by working within the constraints of the CLI, I didn't have to tell people to install software to get my point across.
And I already spoke approvingly of Gitlab's GUI for graph representation! I don't disapprove of GUIs; I use them all the time (particularly Github's). One you grok the data structures that underlie Git, you wind up seeing front ends as interchangeable.
Well, then I simply don’t agree that `git log --oneline --graph` is “really, really bad”.
Clunky? Sure, but it suffices to visualize simple branching patters. And no visualizer suffices for gnarly graphs (like a long-lived topic branch that has repeatedly merged in upstream), because the building a mental model of a complex history is difficult even if you can see it.
With `--oneline`, it's not perfect but it's good enough to be useful — and by working within the constraints of the CLI, I didn't have to tell people to install software to get my point across.
And I already spoke approvingly of Gitlab's GUI for graph representation! I don't disapprove of GUIs; I use them all the time (particularly Github's). One you grok the data structures that underlie Git, you wind up seeing front ends as interchangeable.