Re: Using org-mode and git to make a wiki

[Matthew Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>]

Hi David,

Thanks for these reflections on using org-mode and git for collaborative
work/writing.

David Libert <libert.david@gmail.com> writes:

> I found in the org-mode home page the  worg project,  which is smilar
> to this.  A git repository, and writers contribute to worg through
> git.  But
> worg publishes the org-mode as html  and in the end serves it up as a
> web page.
>
> I propose we never go to html.  Stay in emacs and org-mode the whole
> time.  So you know your readers have the full functionality of org-mode
> to be reading your writing.

You can read Worg online (in html), but you can also peruse the org
source by cloning the git repository. In fact, I mainly consult Worg
offline (via the org files).

Some nice instructions on how to clone Worg can be found here:

http://orgmode.org/worg/worg-git.php

So the good news is: You can already do everything you mention with
org-mode and git. Just clone a bare repository somewhere and allow
others to push and pull from it. 

One can certainly dream, but I imagine the difficult task would be to
convince co-workers to learn emacs and org-mode. ;) To be sure, version
control systems like git, svn, bzr, etc. are the best tools for
collaborative work I've ever found. But they are not exactly user
friendly for non-coders and they are designed to work with plain text.
And, alas, for the past three decades, software developers have worked
very hard to make modern life needlessly complicated by inventing all
sorts of incompatible binary file formats for storing text. Of course,
that was before Carsten Dominik came along to show us just how much is
possible in plain text!

All this is to say that those who do anything other than coding will
likely have to adapt to the web app, workflow, file format, or ticket
tracker that others use. And those who do code may have an even more
difficult time convincing vi users to try org-mode!

The fallback option, of course, is to clip everything you need into
org-mode and to let others wonder what is making you so efficient. :)

Regards,

Matt