6 ms·

This is awesome. I respect GitHub more and more every day. However, despite how much I love the GitHub model and think it's a great way to collaborate, it's s

This is awesome. I respect GitHub more and more every day. However, despite how much I love the GitHub model and think it's a great way to collaborate, it's still (mostly) inaccessible for non-developers. Shameless plug: I think there is still some room for innovation here, so I'm building a GitHub for everyone else: http://madebyloren.com/github-for-writers http://madebyloren.com/github-for-writers

dynamic99 13y ago
As a developer myself, I know it's hard to put a timetable on these kinds of things. That said, do you have a vague idea of when this is going to be released? I'm on a Debate team, and this would be an awesome tool to collaborate on cases. I would use Github for it, but my team is not too tech savvy. Oh, and is this going to be open source? I'd love to help out with this project.
- eric_cc 13y ago
  Simply branching, making edits and PR's is not that difficult. You should consider trying Github for your use-case before you totally dismiss it. It's not as if the command-line tool is required.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    The on-site editor on GitHub was a really great addition of recent.
- glomph 13y ago
  Might want to look at https://www.authorea.com/ https://www.authorea.com/ as well.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Open alpha up right now [1]. I'm not pushing it too hard because there are still some usability issues and bugs to work out, but its getting there. [1] http://penflip.com http://penflip.com
  - dynamic99 13y ago
    Awesome! I'm signed up for alpha! Thanks!
- termain 13y ago
  A standard markup language for flows would be a good idea, too.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jedunnigan 13y ago
I think Github agrees. I have a feeling their 100M investment from Andreesen will be used for this goal.
bicknergseng 13y ago
I wish we could use Git for scientific papers and legislation. I think the "Pull Request" model makes a lot of sense in both of those cases.
- fintler 13y ago
  The last paper I published (IEEE for SC12) was written almost exclusively through a private Github repo. We didn't even think about using anything else -- it just worked. It helps that all of the authors were comfortable with TeX however.
  - Fomite 13y ago
    Yeah, GitHub for papers is really hampered in fields that don't regularly use TeX.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      In work I accidentally discovered once that Microsoft Word (and Excel) supports three-way-merges natively, so there's at least that for non-TeX folks.
    - Myrmornis 13y ago
      Now that MS Word uses zipped xml as their format you can make some progress by specifying a custom diff driver which pipes the plain text to stdout. https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitattributes.html https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitattribut...
    - eru 13y ago
      Just go with markdown?
      - Fomite 13y ago
        As much as I'd like to, I doubt my collaborators would go for it - I work with a lot of clinicians using ancient computers with a stable, predictable work pattern, and they are understandably content with that.
DanielRibeiro 13y ago
Cool. I agreet that there is defintely a lot of things GitHub is missing. A few ones I did myself: 3D Visualization of popular formats: https://github.com/danielribeiro/three-hub https://github.com/danielribeiro/three-hub Syntax Highlight on Diffs: https://github.com/danielribeiro/github-diff-highlight-extension https://github.com/danielribeiro/github-diff-highlight-exten...
0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
It's nice to see the contextual diff as struck out text and highlighted text instead of the usual line by line thing.
wfunction 13y ago
What exactly is wrong with using Google Docs for writing that makes this better?
- tiglionabbit 13y ago
  Heck, now that the Google Drive Realtime Collaboration API exists, he might as well build his system on top of that. https://developers.google.com/drive/realtime/reference/ https://developers.google.com/drive/realtime/reference/
  - rattray 13y ago
    I haven't used the realtime API specifically, but my experiences building a startup around the Drive API leaves me extremely wary about relying on Google/Drive for anything critical. I currently wrap any call to their api in a try_5_times function since they 500 so frequently, and have to put all drive-related tasks in an exponential-backoff queue even after that for when they go down more seriously. Not what I'd want for core realtime functionality. Would be very curious to hear from others who've used the actual realtime api, however.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  I don't see Penflip as a replacement for Google Docs, but there are some cases where Docs breaks down - specifically when there are too many collaborators and when the content is too complex. Another interesting aspect is the need for multiple versions of the same core content - like a syllabus or textbook - with minor variations and modifications as needed. Something like this is unacheivable with Google Docs. For small groups working on a short research paper, Google Docs is great. But could you imagine a book being written with Google Docs, especially with multiple people? That'd be completely unmanageable. I love the HoTT book [1], because it's a great example of using GitHub to write a book with multiple contributors, and really illustrates the shortcomings with other technology [2]. [1] https://github.com/HoTT/book https://github.com/HoTT/book [2] http://math.andrej.com/2013/06/20/the-hott-book/ http://math.andrej.com/2013/06/20/the-hott-book/

dynamic99 13y ago

As a developer myself, I know it's hard to put a timetable on these kinds of things. That said, do you have a vague idea of when this is going to be released? I'm on a Debate team, and this would be an awesome tool to collaborate on cases. I would use Github for it, but my team is not too tech savvy. Oh, and is this going to be open source? I'd love to help out with this project.

eric_cc 13y ago
Simply branching, making edits and PR's is not that difficult. You should consider trying Github for your use-case before you totally dismiss it. It's not as if the command-line tool is required.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  The on-site editor on GitHub was a really great addition of recent.
glomph 13y ago
Might want to look at https://www.authorea.com/ https://www.authorea.com/ as well.
guynamedloren 13y ago
Open alpha up right now [1]. I'm not pushing it too hard because there are still some usability issues and bugs to work out, but its getting there. [1] http://penflip.com http://penflip.com
- dynamic99 13y ago
  Awesome! I'm signed up for alpha! Thanks!
termain 13y ago
A standard markup language for flows would be a good idea, too.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jedunnigan 13y ago

I think Github agrees. I have a feeling their 100M investment from Andreesen will be used for this goal.

bicknergseng 13y ago

I wish we could use Git for scientific papers and legislation. I think the "Pull Request" model makes a lot of sense in both of those cases.

fintler 13y ago
The last paper I published (IEEE for SC12) was written almost exclusively through a private Github repo. We didn't even think about using anything else -- it just worked. It helps that all of the authors were comfortable with TeX however.
- Fomite 13y ago
  Yeah, GitHub for papers is really hampered in fields that don't regularly use TeX.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    In work I accidentally discovered once that Microsoft Word (and Excel) supports three-way-merges natively, so there's at least that for non-TeX folks.
  - Myrmornis 13y ago
    Now that MS Word uses zipped xml as their format you can make some progress by specifying a custom diff driver which pipes the plain text to stdout. https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitattributes.html https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gitattribut...
  - eru 13y ago
    Just go with markdown?
    - Fomite 13y ago
      As much as I'd like to, I doubt my collaborators would go for it - I work with a lot of clinicians using ancient computers with a stable, predictable work pattern, and they are understandably content with that.

DanielRibeiro 13y ago

Cool. I agreet that there is defintely a lot of things GitHub is missing. A few ones I did myself: 3D Visualization of popular formats: https://github.com/danielribeiro/three-hub https://github.com/danielribeiro/three-hub Syntax Highlight on Diffs: https://github.com/danielribeiro/github-diff-highlight-extension https://github.com/danielribeiro/github-diff-highlight-exten...

0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago

It's nice to see the contextual diff as struck out text and highlighted text instead of the usual line by line thing.

wfunction 13y ago

What exactly is wrong with using Google Docs for writing that makes this better?

tiglionabbit 13y ago
Heck, now that the Google Drive Realtime Collaboration API exists, he might as well build his system on top of that. https://developers.google.com/drive/realtime/reference/ https://developers.google.com/drive/realtime/reference/
- rattray 13y ago
  I haven't used the realtime API specifically, but my experiences building a startup around the Drive API leaves me extremely wary about relying on Google/Drive for anything critical. I currently wrap any call to their api in a try_5_times function since they 500 so frequently, and have to put all drive-related tasks in an exponential-backoff queue even after that for when they go down more seriously. Not what I'd want for core realtime functionality. Would be very curious to hear from others who've used the actual realtime api, however.
guynamedloren 13y ago
I don't see Penflip as a replacement for Google Docs, but there are some cases where Docs breaks down - specifically when there are too many collaborators and when the content is too complex. Another interesting aspect is the need for multiple versions of the same core content - like a syllabus or textbook - with minor variations and modifications as needed. Something like this is unacheivable with Google Docs. For small groups working on a short research paper, Google Docs is great. But could you imagine a book being written with Google Docs, especially with multiple people? That'd be completely unmanageable. I love the HoTT book [1], because it's a great example of using GitHub to write a book with multiple contributors, and really illustrates the shortcomings with other technology [2]. [1] https://github.com/HoTT/book https://github.com/HoTT/book [2] http://math.andrej.com/2013/06/20/the-hott-book/ http://math.andrej.com/2013/06/20/the-hott-book/