alt Hacker NewsFor me, it wasn't so much that jj enabled things I couldn't do before, though there are some things. What it enabled was me doing the things I was doing, but in a more easy way. This also leads you to do things that you can do, but sometimes avoid because it's a lot of work.
I guess that makes sense but also reinforces the confusion I have on whether jj is just another git "porcelain" (aka UI), or a replacement for git altogether.
If it aims to mainly improve the UX (do the same things you were doing before but easier), then it's irrelevant to those of us who have been lucky to find and learn sensible UXs. If it aims to be a git replacement, I'm a little curious why the developers would decide to re-implement something from scratch only to end up with an "alternative" that is mostly compatible and doesn't radically change the internal model or add new features.
I last used GitHub Desktop years ago and had a terrible time. The git CLI is powerful but not very intuitive. It really wasn't until I learned magit that things "clicked" for me. I know that many git UXs are pretty bad. But the way git works internally seems pretty great to me. Too often, criticism of git conflates the two.