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> Your average college professor isn't going to learn how to use a version control system to suggest changes to his student's thesis-in-progress. Word has vers

• daned 13y ago
  Couldn't agree with you more. My SO is a PhD candidate and she doesn't know what she's missing when it comes to collaborative version control. They spend a lot of time sending around modified office docs.
  • kleiba 13y ago
    Well, some people claim that tar balls and patches are a much superior source control management system than CVS. So you could say that unless you want every Joe User to master git, sending around modified office docs might not be the worst of solutions.
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• r0muald 13y ago
  Version control in Word (and pretty much any WYSIWYG editor) is fundamentally broken. I can't recall how many days of work I lost just because 1 out of 15 co-authors was not able to use it and fucked up everyone's text. And normally there's just 1 out of 15 that IS able to use it. If you're authoring papers on your own, heh, you could just be using pen and paper.
  • raverbashing 13y ago
    The problem there is having 15 co-authors. Really And if some of them can't use it, teach them. And revert to the previously non-fucked up version (it's on someone's email by the name of Article_1_fixed_2_corrections_10_10.docx)
    • unsignedint 13y ago
      I had to deal with that situation before but I was actually the middle of three parties. (I was B of A-B-C where. A and C was not talking to each other for political and linguistic reasons.) It was nothing but a mess, my inbox would be piled with revised document that often lost tracking, one party sending revised document based on outdated version. (And not sure which version was it.) Something I like about version control is that it at least ensures continuity of the version.
    • DennisP 13y ago
      If our collaboration tools can't handle a mere 15 collaborators, we need better tools.
      • lttlrck 13y ago
        Can 15 people sitting in the same room with a single editor effectively collaborate on a single document?
        • DennisP 13y ago
          Did I say that a single editor with fifteen people sitting around it is a good tool?
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• redacted 13y ago
  Version control in physics research: a pile of printed documents Collaboration in physics research: hand-written notes on margins of said pile The issue with git etc is that everyone involved has to understand how it works and accept and appreciate the benefits over the system outlined above (which works quite well for papers with few authors). If even one author doesn't care, you cannot implement the system. And good luck getting professors to care about things that aren't research or funding.
  • agumonkey 13y ago
    HoTT authors said that distributed version control helped a lot (for both productivity/creativity and spirit of scientific openness) http://math.andrej.com/2013/06/20/the-hott-book/ http://math.andrej.com/2013/06/20/the-hott-book/
• nawitus 13y ago
  Dropbox already offers version control from their web UI.
• iSnow 13y ago
  No offense, but using git for collaborative writing? That's like using nukes to get rid of mosquitoes. SVN would be a poor but better choice, but you'd rather use stypi, google docs or something like that.
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  • Steuard 13y ago
    Wow, do I disagree. I use version control (hg) for solo writing, and I'd love to use it for collaboration if I didn't think it would be an uphill slog to convince my coauthors to learn it too.
    • lostlogin 13y ago
      I'm guessing that you too have opened a recent-but-not-current doc, made changes, added polish etc, only to realise a few hours down the track that you opened a legacy version. Having multiple backups with numbered version names etc is all very well, but when you do it manually and you are working late at night, tired, it's way too easy to screw up up. Better document version control sounds excellent.
  • Too 13y ago
    I can not think of any scenario where svn would be preferable over a distributed vcs such as git or mercurial. They can both be used exactly the same way as svn if you feel for it but come with tons of other benefits. I even think there's less friction to start with for non techincal people because you are always working in "everything always checked out"-mode and there is no need for a common server. Just let them edit in peace and when you want to merge then pull from their local repo. I don't know the state of visual tools for git but tortoisehg for mercurial is quite easy to get started with.
    • iSnow 13y ago
      >I can not think of any scenario where svn would be preferable over a distributed vcs such as git or mercurial. After forgetting to push after commit and then dropping your laptop, you'll know.
• kijin 13y ago
  Actually, that's what I was trying to say. Word's review functions appear as pretty colored bubbles and a bunch of icons on the Ribbon. It's easy enough even for Humanities professors to use on a daily basis, despite the fact that as a VCS, it's strictly inferior to something like git. Actually, I think it's popular precisely because it ain't git. Most professors who are fluent in Word's review functions would be hopelessly lost when faced with a Dropbox conflict, let alone merging git repos.
  • srikrishnan 13y ago
    Totally agree that word's review functions are really simple. Which is why even all legal/contract documents are exchanged back and forth between companies in Word today. The hassle is that its done over email - sending versions of attachments back and forth. Nice naming convention helps, but there are definitely better solutions to do the same online today.
    • eigenvalue 13y ago
      Actually, most big law firms do not use the built in track changes function in Word, they use more specialized (and in my experience, better performing) software that take a "before" and "after" Word file and then generate a nice "redlined" version showing insertions, deletions, moves, etc. in different colors. Examples include Workshare DeltaView and Litera Change Pro.
      • eru 13y ago
        Word itself allows you to compare multiple files nowadays. (Though I don't know if it does three-way merges, yet.)
  • lallysingh 13y ago
    I think you're absurdly underestimating people. A diff is a bunch of lines removed, and lines added. That's a pretty damn natural representation. As for git's complexity, it's all in its completely opaque display of its internal state. A chain of deltas - diffs - isn't complicated. It's all git's (perverse) desire to follow the exact-same command-line interface as cat and awk, when neither contain persistent state.
• bentoner 13y ago
  Our startup takes a third approach: automatically detect when one document is a new version of another, so that software can take care of the version control, while the humans can go on being human. We're bringing version control to people who collaborate by email, starting with Gmail. All people have to do is exchange drafts by email (like normal!), and we infer the history, as if they've been using git. We're looking for beta testers: https://draftable.com https://draftable.com
  • sammyo 13y ago
    This looks quite interesting and quite topical to a discussion I had just yesterday during an interview. I almost clicked the installer but hesitated. A link that discusses the impact and especially any issues if/when your product was uninstalled would be reassuring.
    • bentoner 13y ago
      Sorry for the delay: busy weekend. I added a FAQ https://draftable.com/gmail/faq https://draftable.com/gmail/faq with the answer to your question (and more), but I'll answer here too: We don't modify the data in your Gmail account, so if you try Draftable, then uninstall it, your Gmail account won't be altered. Furthermore, if you disable Draftable before uninstalling it, we'll delete our index and revoke our access to your account.
      • monksy 13y ago
        Why use Draftable when you can use google docs? That keeps version history automatically.
        • bentoner 13y ago
          Sure. If everyone you deal with uses Google Docs, then you don't need Draftable. It's meant for people who exchange documents by email.
• disgruntledphd2 13y ago
  Yes, but it only works when you use word. Yours sincerely, a graduate student whose thesis is written in LaTeX and then converted to RTF and then hand edited so his supervisor(s) can give him comments. I sent them a link to my github repository, but they never took me up on my offer :(
  • peatmoss 13y ago
    You're much better off converting your latex--provided you don't have a bunch of kinky formatting--to docx via Pandoc. I've found that collaboration on documents via Markdown is not too crazy bad. Otherwise, I ask for comments on the PDF or on hard copy. Going back to latex from RTF is an exercise in madness.
  • pseut 13y ago
    If you don't already do it, set up separate branches for each advisor/supervisor so you can add their comments there, then merge it back with your own work. i.e., just pretend that they're using git too, but do it for them. And I second the pandoc recommendation if you can get it to work
  • tarre 13y ago
    Did you try to send them just the pdf-file? That worked for me.
    • disgruntledphd2 13y ago
      I wish. Did that for a while, but when I told them when I wanted to finish, they demanded Word. The worst part was that they didn't even use the track changes feature on anything I sent them.
  • minor_nitwit 13y ago
    Should have gone PDF. The comments in pdfs are some what manageable.
  • unsignedint 13y ago
    +1 for PDF as well. I actually do make bit of things in LaTeX through Org-mode at the office, and sending things in PDF actually makes it clear what kind of handling I'm looking for. If I'm actually expecting someone to revise my writing, then I'll just send them plaintext. Now considering even Adobe Reader allows commenting, I don't think there are many of issues any more...
• pea 13y ago
  That's actually what we are doing @ Kivo.com :p
• HillRat 13y ago
  Yeah, our creative writing tool (backspacr.com) uses versioning at the scene/subchapter level, and it's definitely nontrivial to present diff and merge tools to end users. We're working through customer stories right now to try and do discovery on just this issue.