Julia Evans on Nostr: does anyone have tips for how to make sense of git merge histories like this? do you ...

does anyone have tips for how to make sense of git merge histories like this? do you use `git log --first-parent`? something else? how can you tell if commit A was merged before or after commit B? what if there are "backwards" merges like in the 3rd screenshot?

(no "just make the history linear” or "merges are bad" takes please)