[clug] Any experience in collaborative authoring using Version Control and Latex??

Scott Ferguson scott.ferguson.clug at gmail.com
Tue Jan 8 03:32:46 MST 2013


On 08/01/13 20:07, steve jenkin wrote:
> A recent experience has made me think again about how Tom Linoncelli
> co-wrote a book with someone on the other side of a either continent or
> ocean, using email, latex and an SVN or CVS repo on a hosting service.
> [Who went bust in the middle of it and caused a move.]
> 
> I've just gone through the classic Wordprocessing multi-author
> nightmare. Albeit, not nearly as bad as it may have been.
> 
<snipped>
> 
> I specifically don't want a real-time "Collaboration Tool" [Google had
> one of those and set it free a couple of years ago, didn't they? Name
> escapes me...]
> 
> Thanks in Advance.
> 
> cheers
> steve
> 
> 
I'll second Mike's suggestion - you have a Google Docs account, might as
well use it. I've used it and like it - I also use github and plain text
(I've used cvs also). If you have ethical problems using Google's free
products I struggle to see how not paying them for something somehow
empowers evil.

IMNSHO While latex is great for markup, a mistake I've made in the past
was to format unfinished work.
Until the first draft everything should always be plain text (focus on
content not style). Not doing that can lead to critical thinking errors
like "assuming" that everyone has the same (proprietary) font (like
Helvetica) - which can compound other problems like kerning/line hight
etc - leading to line numbering problems.  Agree on plain text and and a
character set. May I suggest UTF-8 (please *don't* use #$$!@!
ISO-1920s-Windows). Use simple referencing prefaced with the authors
initials eg. [sf001]

A third option is wikis. I can recommend dokuwiki and lighthttpd as a
fast, simple wiki (apt-get and away you go).


[sf001] wot I wrote

Good luck.


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