{"thread":{"id":"31754","subject":"In search of a version control system","startedAt":"2012-10-08T18:06:21Z","lastAt":"2012-10-21T13:25:11Z","messageCount":8,"participants":["Maurice Francois","Ramkumar Ramachandra","Matthieu Moy","David Aguilar","Drew Northup","Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy","Sitaram Chamarty"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"200769","messageId":"1349719581.76671.YahooMailNeo@web122505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"In search of a version control system","fromName":"Maurice Francois","fromEmail":"francoismaurice2001@yahoo.ca","sentAt":"2012-10-08T18:06:21Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-08T18:06:21Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"francoismaurice2001@yahoo.ca","avatar":null},"body":"Hi,\n\nMy thesis supervisor asked me to find a VCS. He wants to version-controlled all his projects.\n\n\nThe needs are not that big, that is to say it is academic and research projects. A project can have dozens of \nWord, PDF and program files (Stata do-files, SAS programs, SPPS syntaxe \nfiles and R scripts) and their corresponding log files.\n\nLike many people, I hesitate between Git and Subversion. I like the idea of distributed version control system. But is that such a system eliminates the need for a real server ? Can we just set up a repository on one of the computers in our workplace and give access to that repository via a local connection or via a remote VPN connection ? \n\nWe do not need to work at the same time on a file. The work is not so intense. So, is it possible to lock a file while someone work on it ?\n\nThanks, \n\nFrançois Maurice\nCandidat à la maîtrise\nDépartement de sociologie\nUniversité de Montréal      \n"},{"id":"200773","messageId":"CALkWK0kCbLxPMbxh=CLAE8UkkNFNqDa1QbtdM_-Q+Qr3SRh46Q@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":"1349719581.76671.YahooMailNeo@web122505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com","subject":"Re: In search of a version control system","fromName":"Ramkumar Ramachandra","fromEmail":"artagnon@gmail.com","sentAt":"2012-10-08T18:24:04Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-08T18:24:04Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"r@artagnon.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/37226?v=4"},"body":"Hi Maurice,\n\nMaurice Francois wrote:\n> The needs are not that big, that is to say it is academic and research projects. A project can have dozens of\n> Word, PDF and program files (Stata do-files, SAS programs, SPPS syntaxe\n> files and R scripts) and their corresponding log files.\n\nNote that Git wasn't designed for big binary files, and doesn't\nperform well between them.\n\n> Like many people, I hesitate between Git and Subversion.\n\nI honestly cannot comprehend why someone would choose Subversion over\nGit for a fresh repository today.\n\n> I like the idea of distributed version control system. But is that such a system eliminates the need for a real server ? Can we just set up a repository on one of the computers in our workplace and give access to that repository via a local connection or via a remote VPN connection ?\n\nYes, you can have a \"blessed\" server, just like in Subversion. And\nyes, you can access it over git://, http://, https://, or ssh://.\n\n> So, is it possible to lock a file while someone work on it ?\n\nNo, and I honestly think it's a bad idea. Read up more about Git, and\ntry to understand how people work with it.\n\nRam\n"},{"id":"200775","messageId":"vpqa9vwstp3.fsf@grenoble-inp.fr","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":"CALkWK0kCbLxPMbxh=CLAE8UkkNFNqDa1QbtdM_-Q+Qr3SRh46Q@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: In search of a version control system","fromName":"Matthieu Moy","fromEmail":"matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr","sentAt":"2012-10-08T18:30:00Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-08T18:30:00Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr","avatar":"https://gravatar.com/avatar/72c8a2705971a25dfaff23cece15130d405685845d911aedd5667ace277f3fc5?d=mp&s=160"},"body":"Ramkumar Ramachandra writes:\n\n>> So, is it possible to lock a file while someone work on it ?\n>\n> No, and I honestly think it's a bad idea.\n\nIf you work on non-mergeable files (e.g. *.doc files. There are merge\ntools for MS Word and LibreOffice, but my experience with them was not\nreally pleasant), then file locking is indeed not such a bad idea.\n\n-- \nMatthieu Moy\nhttp://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/\n"},{"id":"200812","messageId":"CAJDDKr5PxM3a6TjfdVoCp1VzgCFBKQ6YGhpN-BO-D=CyVTQX3w@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":"vpqa9vwstp3.fsf@grenoble-inp.fr","subject":"Re: In search of a version control system","fromName":"David Aguilar","fromEmail":"davvid@gmail.com","sentAt":"2012-10-09T03:19:26Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-09T03:19:26Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"davvid@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/13196?v=4"},"body":"On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Matthieu Moy\n wrote:\n> Ramkumar Ramachandra writes:\n>\n>>> So, is it possible to lock a file while someone work on it ?\n>>\n>> No, and I honestly think it's a bad idea.\n>\n> If you work on non-mergeable files (e.g. *.doc files. There are merge\n> tools for MS Word and LibreOffice, but my experience with them was not\n> really pleasant), then file locking is indeed not such a bad idea.\n\ngitolite to the rescue:\n\nhttp://sitaramc.github.com/gitolite/locking.html\n\nIf you want to setup a git server, look at gitolite.\nIt's really easy and slick.\n\nI would advise against the file locking, though. You ain't gonna need it ;-)\n-- \nDavid\n"},{"id":"200815","messageId":"vpq4nm4rxsy.fsf@grenoble-inp.fr","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":"CAJDDKr5PxM3a6TjfdVoCp1VzgCFBKQ6YGhpN-BO-D=CyVTQX3w@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: In search of a version control system","fromName":"Matthieu Moy","fromEmail":"matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr","sentAt":"2012-10-09T05:58:53Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-09T05:58:53Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"matthieu.moy@grenoble-inp.fr","avatar":"https://gravatar.com/avatar/72c8a2705971a25dfaff23cece15130d405685845d911aedd5667ace277f3fc5?d=mp&s=160"},"body":"David Aguilar writes:\n\n> I would advise against the file locking, though. You ain't gonna need\n> it ;-)\n\nWhat do you suggest to merge Word files?\n\n-- \nMatthieu Moy\nhttp://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/\n"},{"id":"201629","messageId":"CAM9Z-nnQjhehJEpyhyTY=rsK_f=2gTOUMVTycn7-Lao8Gog0pA@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":"vpq4nm4rxsy.fsf@grenoble-inp.fr","subject":"Re: In search of a version control system","fromName":"Drew Northup","fromEmail":"n1xim.email@gmail.com","sentAt":"2012-10-21T12:20:13Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-21T12:20:13Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"n1xim.email@gmail.com","avatar":null},"body":"On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 1:58 AM, Matthieu Moy\n wrote:\n> David Aguilar writes:\n>\n>> I would advise against the file locking, though. You ain't gonna need\n>> it ;-)\n>\n> What do you suggest to merge Word files?\n\nIf the files are in the DOCX format you can just expand them as zip\narchives and diff what's inside of them. The text in particular is\nstored as XML.\n\n-- \n-Drew Northup\n--------------------------------------------------------------\n\"As opposed to vegetable or mineral error?\"\n-John Pescatore, SANS NewsBites Vol. 12 Num. 59\n"},{"id":"201630","messageId":"CACsJy8ASoaH40ScHwv1EB2kw8sxMh3oFb45s5shUPUmRUF7gRA@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":"CAM9Z-nnQjhehJEpyhyTY=rsK_f=2gTOUMVTycn7-Lao8Gog0pA@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: In search of a version control system","fromName":"Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy","fromEmail":"pclouds@gmail.com","sentAt":"2012-10-21T13:16:50Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-21T13:16:50Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"pclouds@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/720?v=4"},"body":"On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 7:20 PM, Drew Northup wrote:\n> On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 1:58 AM, Matthieu Moy\n> wrote:\n>> David Aguilar writes:\n>>\n>>> I would advise against the file locking, though. You ain't gonna need\n>>> it ;-)\n>>\n>> What do you suggest to merge Word files?\n>\n> If the files are in the DOCX format you can just expand them as zip\n> archives and diff what's inside of them. The text in particular is\n> stored as XML.\n\nAn XML diff means nothing to a regular user, and manually \"merging\"\nthis way can produce unreadable Words files. So no, it's still not an\nanswer.\n-- \nDuy\n"},{"id":"201631","messageId":"CAMK1S_hz-N-5mJ3OOOXbsQ5V+EjpFBmM9WFHJ_p2cxLDhVf8Ow@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"31754","inReplyTo":"CAM9Z-nnQjhehJEpyhyTY=rsK_f=2gTOUMVTycn7-Lao8Gog0pA@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: In search of a version control system","fromName":"Sitaram Chamarty","fromEmail":"sitaramc@gmail.com","sentAt":"2012-10-21T13:25:11Z","receivedAt":"2012-10-21T13:25:11Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"sitaramc@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/43316?v=4"},"body":"On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 5:50 PM, Drew Northup wrote:\n> On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 1:58 AM, Matthieu Moy\n> wrote:\n>> David Aguilar writes:\n>>\n>>> I would advise against the file locking, though. You ain't gonna need\n>>> it ;-)\n>>\n>> What do you suggest to merge Word files?\n>\n> If the files are in the DOCX format you can just expand them as zip\n> archives and diff what's inside of them. The text in particular is\n> stored as XML.\n\nYou also need a merge driver that at least splits the \"all in one\nsingle very very long line\" XML into different lines in some way. I\ndon't think git can merge even text files if everything is on one line\nin each file. And even if you do this I don't think the result will\nbe a valid ODT etc file.\n\nAll in all, I prefer the locking that David mentioned [1]. And if\nyour users cannot be trained to check first (as that URL describes),\nthen you probably have to use a CVCS that supports some stronger form\nof locking.\n\n[1]: http://sitaramc.github.com/gitolite/locking.html\n"}]}