From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eric Abrahamsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: What's your favourite *under_publicized* editing feature ofEmacs? Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 01:22:12 +0800 Message-ID: <87fwr9xuij.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> References: <1578157c-17a0-41ea-9420-9330f68b10fe@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com> <87ei6zpbor.fsf@rapttech.com.au> <2p8vx4550z.fsf@shell.xmission.com> <87lj11dhm9.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1298827569 8634 80.91.229.12 (27 Feb 2011 17:26:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 17:26:09 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Feb 27 18:26:05 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PtkNd-0004Av-4O for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:26:01 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:51716 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PtkKw-0006Rq-1M for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:23:14 -0500 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=59839 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PtkKO-0006DQ-CM for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:22:45 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PtkKJ-0007HT-Ha for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:22:40 -0500 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:43871) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PtkKJ-0007H6-3G for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:22:35 -0500 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PtkKC-0002ed-Od for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:22:28 +0100 Original-Received: from 114.142.151.2 ([114.142.151.2]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:22:28 +0100 Original-Received: from eric by 114.142.151.2 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:22:28 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 70 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 114.142.151.2 User-Agent: Gnus/5.110014 (No Gnus v0.14) Emacs/23.2 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Cl5wp6iq3uFunDcTFN6LcmuNrzk= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 80.91.229.12 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:79533 Archived-At: On Mon, Feb 28 2011, Perry Smith wrote: > On Feb 27, 2011, at 9:28 AM, Cthun wrote: > >> On 27/02/2011 3:08 AM, David Kastrup wrote: >>> Cthun writes: >>>> Oh, really? I for one cannot recall ever seeing a version 1.5 of a >>>> novel or a version 2.0 of a magazine article. >>> >>> Well, I've been responsible for the typesetting software for "Die >>> Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke von Ernst Troeltsch" >>> [anecdote trimmed] >>> >>> So definitely there were various versions of the same article published. >> >> But that's not the same thing as software versioning, or anywhere close. >> >>> The gestation of both articles and novels is rarely linear. >> >> True enough. But it is also not going to fit especially well to what >> systems designed for software revision control do. There is a single >> long piece of text rather than lots of interacting software modules, >> for one thing; there are no builds or library dependencies or bug >> reports or feature requests. There's also a point where it's >> actually *finished*, while software is never finished and has many >> successive versions released, each fixing the bugs in the previous >> and adding new features. [...] >> Then woe betide you if you ever work on, say, a novel rather than a >> computer program. > > > The phrase you pulled out referred to "version control". You are now > talking about source code control systems... > > Also, SCMs that I know like git, svn, rcs, bzr, etc do not have any > concept of build, dependencies, bug reports, or feature requests. Its > one of my frustrations. If you know if a single system that has all > those, I'd love to know about them. The only fully integrated example > I have is IBM's CMVC and IBM dumped it because no one understood it. > > Aside from that, I'm not getting your point at all. An article can > easily be broken into sections, a book into chapters which are then > subdivided into sections. Those sections will have dependencies. I > doubt if the author will add those in but the concept still applies. > And as far as history, there are countless examples where a single > journalistic piece has a very long life to it. Haven't ever listened > to where historians go back and review the author's original notes? > God... there are entire books about the American Constitution trying > to reconstruct the various versions and the intentions behind each of > them. To add my cent-and-a-half… I use emacs (and git) for novel translation—functionally the same as novel writing. While I'm far happier with this setup than with any other (in moving from a Mac to Linux, my only regret is the loss of Tinderbox), I can certainly see cthun's point. When you are writing long-form text, the unit is the paragraph. When writing code, the unit is the line. Writing prose, the addition of one word can transform a whole paragraph (using fill-mode). Writing code, the addition of one "word" generally only changes a line. Version control systems thus become that much less useful. Not useless, just less useful. Git is still great for doing a commit with translation and research notes in, and then another with them out, or even branching—that sort of thing. But you have to think harder about how conceptual alterations should be recorded as version changes. E