Is Git dead?

Is Git dead?

Yeah, I know. Click bait. So let's get the answer out there right away: No. At least not yet.

Git is thriving

Being at GitHub Universe last month reaffirmed for me that Git is very much alive. There may be 17 million JavaScript developers, but there are millions more who use Git for code version control. (From what I could find, this is somewhere between 100-150 million developers worldwide.)

Git is at the core of developer workflows. For the last 15 or so years, Git has been the primary mechanism through which we've moved code around the internet. It's that fundamental IFTTT trigger: something has changed in the code (or content), and now we need to do something else as a result of the change.

We can see how rich that space is and how much potential there is by looking at everything GitHub is working on.

With Git as the foundation of these workflows, and GitHub as the most popular platform that enables the work to happen, then no. Git is not dead. Not anytime soon, at least. (In fact, just the opposite. I think we're going to see some really cool and creative uses of AI workflows with Git as their foundation.)

Git is not for everyone

For those of us who have been around web development for awhile, Git is second nature. But if you look back to the those early days, you may recall Git feeling a little ... goofy. It is version control, but the concepts unique to Git take a little getting used to.

Meanwhile, LLMs and AI coding agents have opened up web development to an order of magnitude more people — many of them who have no understanding of what the code actually does and how it works.

Within that group, there's a spectrum of interest in understanding the underlying technology. Some people are actually trying to build things for professional or personal improvement or accomplishment. Even if they don't necessarily want to be developers, they may want to understand how things are working.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who just find it really cool to spin things up, or they want to build their own website. They're not doing it for financial, professional, or career gain, even indirectly. It might just be for fun. These folks likely have no interest in learning Git at all. Version control is table stakes and achieved through UI and chat interactions.

A new opportunity for Git education

For those that do want to understand how things work under the hood, there is an opportunity to rethink how we introduce them to Git in a way they can grasp and apply quickly and successfully. (This may mean they don't necessarily actually touch Git directly, but through an agent.)

What becomes more important than knowing the commands is understanding the unique paradigms of Git to be able to bend it to new/custom workflows. To not memorize the commands, but to use natural language to instruct agents to leverage the power of the web to achieve their goals.

Version control for vibe coders

But how do we serve the folks that don't care how things work, but just want them to work?

I'd suspect they, too, would want to have version control, and that they'd expect to interact with versions through a UI or chat interface.

Does that mean that Git is still the foundation they're working with?

I don't know. But I think we have to consider a world where the answer may be no.

Opening paths for exploration

What's really exciting to me about being at Netlify today is that much of our job right now is opening paths for exploration. About providing a platform for creators across the developer spectrum to build for the web in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Git workflows on Netlify

For the last decade, the vast majority of Netlify users used Git as the foundation of CI/CD workflows:

• Push to GitHub and, voila!, a few minutes later, your site is live in production!
• Open a pull request, get a preview URL for your changes, and share it with your team for feedback.

I've been a Netlify user for many years, and relied on these flows for dozen (maybe hundreds) of projects. It's perfect for me.

Non-Git workflows on Netlify

Meanwhile, there have always been non-Git workflows for Netlify:

• Drag and drop a folder and your site immediately deploys. No Git.
• Run netlify deploy --prod with the Netlify CLI in a local folder and your site is live, while Netlify knows nothing of your use (or non-use) of Git.

The excitement is in the adventure

I love being in this space right now because we don't need to know where we're going. We can simply open up paths for people to explore and see where they lead.

Does that mean the future of web development is a future without Git?

I guess we'll find out.