I know what you mean (deleting a branch in a remote is a very unintuitive syntax to me at first glance, especially), but these are perhaps not the best examples:
> Why do you create a branch via the "git checkout" command?
That's a shortcut for "git branch (name)", then "git checkout (name)". Or the newer "switch" which is more obvious.
> Why do you delete tags using "git tag -d" but delete stashes using "git stash drop"?
Because the stash is more like a stack, and tags are not, so "drop" without a parameter is a valid and very usual command. Yes, it feels inconsistent, but allowing "git stash -d" without a parameter would probably not be better.
> If you want to blow away local uncommitted changes, you can use "git reset", "git reset --hard" or "git checkout (file)" - which (I think) all do totally different things.
These do all do different things, so that's why they all exist. "git restore (file)" was introduced a few years ago (with "switch", mentioned earlier) to make the last one more obvious, since that's indeed always been an uncomfortable syntax for a core operation.
Git's a very powerful tool, originally aimed at a very complex code base run by experts, and was written very quickly as an emergency replacement for BitWarden. This rushed development and target audience does show through even today, but it's being annealed over time. Nevertheless, it's so good at what it does that it's taken out nearly every other VCS by just existing (ok, and the network effects of GitHub, but they choose it for a reason too).
> Why do you create a branch via the "git checkout" command?
That's a shortcut for "git branch (name)", then "git checkout (name)". Or the newer "switch" which is more obvious.
> Why do you delete tags using "git tag -d" but delete stashes using "git stash drop"?
Because the stash is more like a stack, and tags are not, so "drop" without a parameter is a valid and very usual command. Yes, it feels inconsistent, but allowing "git stash -d" without a parameter would probably not be better.
> If you want to blow away local uncommitted changes, you can use "git reset", "git reset --hard" or "git checkout (file)" - which (I think) all do totally different things.
These do all do different things, so that's why they all exist. "git restore (file)" was introduced a few years ago (with "switch", mentioned earlier) to make the last one more obvious, since that's indeed always been an uncomfortable syntax for a core operation.
Git's a very powerful tool, originally aimed at a very complex code base run by experts, and was written very quickly as an emergency replacement for BitWarden. This rushed development and target audience does show through even today, but it's being annealed over time. Nevertheless, it's so good at what it does that it's taken out nearly every other VCS by just existing (ok, and the network effects of GitHub, but they choose it for a reason too).