In your design, can I go to the other "branch/folder" and look around / copy over that binary to my current "branch/folder" in a file explorer without a "checkout"?
However, I was going to make a browser UI from the start. I could implement a branch and file explorer in that UI, which would allow you to do the same thing.
Would that be good enough or not? I'd love to know because I want to build this tool for humans first.
Probably, yes. Anything that does not require thinking in current Git-logic. I don't mind Git that much in everyday work but if something nicer came along, that would be great.
I do think that Git is very well established, and it would probably take a major player, maybe Azure or AWS with a cloud-based IDE to change paradigms.
I just realized something: maybe I can make it so regular file explorers work.
I had intended to use something like Fossil's checkouts. I could formalize it; each branch the user wants could be a separate directory in the repo directory.
While I hate that, people seem to like it. I think I will do it.