The one and only time it breached single-digit upvotes (and thus likely to hit the front page) was 2 years ago, where it got 300 points.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=learngitbranching.js....
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
So yeah, it did have some other popular postings, with one at 12 pts 6 years ago, 47 pts and 82 pts and 232 7 years ago, and 702 pts 8 years ago.
The one and only time it breached single-digit upvotes (and thus likely to hit the front page) was 2 years ago, where it got 300 points.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=learngitbranching.js....