3 ms·

Out of interest, what types of version control systems have you seen people cobble together in the workplace, and to address what types of needs? It's interest

Out of interest, what types of version control systems have you seen people cobble together in the workplace, and to address what types of needs? It's interesting to observe how banks and consultancies "version up" spreadsheets and slide decks by copying the document (plus all supporting documents) and incrementing a version in the name. And also interesting to observe that's worked well enough for quite a long time.

chaostheory 7y ago
The best for spreadsheets and macros is some variant of cloud storage like DropBox or Box. I believe many of them now keep versions of files.
myroon5 7y ago
I think the problem includes the fact that most workplaces aren't cobbling together anything much better than that. I have found the default Google Suite experience to be much better with respect to version control. It seems like businesses forgo office suite solutions with better version control due to concerns over file hosting location though
Vaslo 7y ago
Really great question - can never get a good answer on this. It would be great if something like GIT worked since it’s just a compressed XML file but no dice. We have some huge unstable spreadsheets we have to save often, and it’s 100MB a save in some cases.
- kornish 7y ago
  That's wild - where's that 100MB coming from? Have you looked at something like xltrail (https://www.xltrail.com https://www.xltrail.com) or do you think not being integrated with your normal file storage is a showstopper? Looks like xltrail is its own source of truth.
ant6n 7y ago
Nowadays, SharePoint should help with version control. But it's an MS product, so it doesn't work and people will just end up e-mailing each other incremented versions.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  I've used SharePoint to collaboratively create and edit a few 50 page export controlled (read: cloud not an option, at least back then and for cheap) Word documents. It was surprisingly usable and worked fine. Everyone just used word itself (not the web app) and things kept updating when we pressed the sync button. Way better than like, confluence or that stuff. I tried getting execs to use markdown and rst with git and phabricator for version control/review/approval but just haven't succeeded yet.

chaostheory 7y ago

The best for spreadsheets and macros is some variant of cloud storage like DropBox or Box. I believe many of them now keep versions of files.

myroon5 7y ago

I think the problem includes the fact that most workplaces aren't cobbling together anything much better than that. I have found the default Google Suite experience to be much better with respect to version control. It seems like businesses forgo office suite solutions with better version control due to concerns over file hosting location though

Vaslo 7y ago

Really great question - can never get a good answer on this. It would be great if something like GIT worked since it’s just a compressed XML file but no dice. We have some huge unstable spreadsheets we have to save often, and it’s 100MB a save in some cases.

kornish 7y ago
That's wild - where's that 100MB coming from? Have you looked at something like xltrail (https://www.xltrail.com https://www.xltrail.com) or do you think not being integrated with your normal file storage is a showstopper? Looks like xltrail is its own source of truth.

ant6n 7y ago

Nowadays, SharePoint should help with version control. But it's an MS product, so it doesn't work and people will just end up e-mailing each other incremented versions.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
I've used SharePoint to collaboratively create and edit a few 50 page export controlled (read: cloud not an option, at least back then and for cheap) Word documents. It was surprisingly usable and worked fine. Everyone just used word itself (not the web app) and things kept updating when we pressed the sync button. Way better than like, confluence or that stuff. I tried getting execs to use markdown and rst with git and phabricator for version control/review/approval but just haven't succeeded yet.