Yeah -- I use sourcetree almost exclusively. Why would I want to type 'git status' and then 'git diff long/path/to/my/file.txt' when I could just click on the file in the changes list?
To see a diff of that file I'd you could just type gst or git diff l and hit tab in zsh until I get to the path I want. Takes me a short time, I don't have to move my hand away from the keyboard and I can use my aliases if I want to. I feel like for my day-to-day work, the CLI works faster and better than all of the GUI tools I see. Also, it's available on every machine I touch (colleagues and juniors when help is needed). I just find it more valuable in my day-to-day workflow compared to GUI stuff.
if you are already using a GUI for your IDE, is it really faster typing on the command line than right clicking on your git root folder in explorer -- that in my case is usually on a different monitor -- and clicking on git commit where you can see all of your changes, and then double clicking on a file to bring up your diffs?
Don't get me wrong, knowing the command line is invaluable when it comes to corner cases that just don't work well in a GUI and automating tasks.
Yep, it's absolutely faster - a command line is simply more responsive than moving a mouse and clicking dialogs if you know exactly what you need to do. I've always used an IDE but I exclusively use the command line for VCS. Setting up a commit is much easier to do if you know all the commands over the tedious drag/right click/choose dialog.
As to your use case, git diff has never failed me.
This is all aside from the fact that the CLI is ubiquitous. One day you'll be in a situation where it's all you have access to, and you'll thank yourself for having learned it (or kick yourself for not).
When would I only have access to the command line as Windows developer? The most I would have to do from a command line in my usual day to day work is use git pull to automate my deployments. But in that case, I also need to know the ins and outs of msbuild. That doesn't mean I'm going to use a regular old text editor and build with msbuild in my daily workflow.
Maybe in the general case, but not in the scenario I outlined above. What if there are 20 files I touched? I'll need to type each of the 20 paths to view each individual diff. And that's if I view each diff only once, which I don't typically do.
I understand the value of being familiar with your tools, but sometimes the CLI just isn't the right one.
EDIT: btw, I use the vim plugins in all of my work (VS, VSCode), so I'm not shy when it comes to learning curves.
Then use a different `diff` app, such as the wonderful graphical kdiff if you're on KDE. You can find the differ that you like and then set `git` use it as a default.
True, but a graphical differ I'll concede could be easier to use than a CLI differ for some people. But a full graphical Git environment is horrible. I've seen my Windows-using colleagues use them. Shudder.
By the way, you might want to look at the `--diff-word` option.
