The Feature That Took Years (and One Rainy Monday) to Build
You know those features that haunt the back of your mind? The ones you want to build but can’t bring yourself to start on. For me, a big one was visualizing Git’s branch relationships. I’d scribbled ideas in Obsidian for years—algorithm sketches, dead ends, “what ifs.” Every time I opened that note, it whispered: Too hard. Too messy. Maybe someday.
Then, last Monday happened.
Rain tapped the window. Kids off to school. Coffee in hand. I had planned to tweak Chinese translations on another one of my apps—mundane, safe work. But out of nowhere, clarity struck: Today’s the day.
I flung open Mission Control, spawned a pristine desktop (no clutter! pure possibility!), and summoned Xcode, Cursor, ChatGPT, and that infamous Obsidian note. For hours, I wrestled with half-baked AI-generated algorithms. They’d pass one unit test, then slowly crumble into spaghetti as AI tried to cheat, inserting hard-coded fixes. By afternoon, I’d scrapped it all.
For hours, I’d leaned on AI to brute-force solutions—and while it helped untangle smaller knots, this problem demanded something different. Not complexity, but simplicity. Not code, but clarity.
Then, in a moment of quiet defiance, I pared everything back. Deleted the noise. Wrote just 100 lines by hand, iterating on the AI’s scaffolding.
And there it was: a grid of green—tests passing. No fanfare. No fireworks. Just steady, quiet proof that years of notes and one stubborn Monday could add up to something right.
Introducing the Update Born From That Monday
New:
✅ Git Graph Lines Those sleek branch visualizations I’d obsessed over? They’re here. Trace commit relationships effortlessly—no more mental mapmaking.
✅ Git References See “main,” “origin/feat/new-thing,” or tags like “v2.0” right in your commit history. Context, instantly.
Improved:
✨ Redesigned Commit List
- Cleaner, faster, resizable. Shape it to your workflow.
✨ Enhanced Commit View
- Gravatar author pics (put faces to commits)
- Smarter rename highlights, no-noise deletions
- Expandable messages, change counts, intuitive indicators
This update isn’t just features—it’s a testament to small steps. For years, I added notes to that Obsidian doc, unsure if they’d ever matter. Then, one Monday, they did.
To anyone nurturing their own “someday” project:
Keep the faith. Clear the clutter. And when the spark lands? Follow it.
Try the new Gitonium. Here’s to quiet persistence.🥂