I'm one of the authors. Our goal is to make something much much easier to use than Git, and we're already succeeding in doing that.
The math can be completely ignored by the user, it is just a way to guarantee that the tool will always match the basic intuition of version control. For instance:
- "Associativity" is a concept of algebra, but when applied to version control, it just means the following: let's Alice makes a commit A, and Bob makes two commits B and C. If Alice pulls B, and then pulls C, associativity means that she'll get the same as pulling B and C together. Pijul is associative, but Git is not!
- "Commutativity" is also a concept of algebra, but in practice in version control, it means that you don't have to think about feature branches. In Pijul, two patches that you could produce on different branches are "independent" anyway. Applying them in any order will always yield the same result, so you can push any of them, no matter the order in which you made them. This property means that "rebasing" becomes much simpler: it's just the action of applying and unapplying patches. Also, cherry-picking becomes the default, you don't even have to think about it.
- "Inverses": in Pijul, all patches have inverses. Sure, it sounds like `git revert`, except that `git revert` can sometimes screw things up very badly (if you `git revert` a merge commit, for instance).
Also, in Pijul, conflicts are the normal state, so you don't need anything like `git rerere`, and two users with the same patches (even in different orders) will always see the same conflicts. If you have a patch solving a conflict between two other patches, then the conflict is solved forever, and doesn't "come back".
As a conclusion, I'd say Git might be too technical for a normal programmer (which is why we have giant threads like this one on HN), but Pijul is the exact opposite.
It is as powerful as Git, but beginner-friendly, infinitely faster to learn, and more flexible. Since there can be no "bad merge", you don't have to think about your version control system anymore, and can focus on your work.
That said, there are still a few problems:
- it's not yet as efficient as Git for storage, but we're working on it. We just released the first full implementation a few weeks ago.
- it will never be as good as Git for detecting file moves, because Git is happy with a soup of blobs, whereas Pijul needs more structure (but OTOH that extra structure makes Pijul much better at "blame").
