Science Memes

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LPT Do it. (mander.xyz)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Don't you automatically put everything relevant you create in a version control system? And if not, why?

There's no thinking involved on it. Create repo; run editor. The sequence is automatic.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Only makes sense if it's text files (like source code). Even if DOCX files are just a bunch of XML files wearing ZIP trenchcoat as this guy says, chances are git doesn't know that, so it'll treat the whole thing as a binary file and save each revision as a separate file entirely, in which case you haven't really accomplished much other than hiding away all those intermediate versions in an invisible drawer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

you haven’t really accomplished much other than hiding away all those intermediate versions in an invisible drawer

What's a huge improvement.

And the alternative is what exactly? Using the Word's internal version control? Yeah, right; good luck with that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I suppose it can be helpful if seeing a folder full of revisions would otherwise drive you crazy. I mean, I fully admit I also sometimes just dump a mess from my desk into a drawer just so I don't have to look at it constantly.

Also, if you have a consistent habit of writing accurate and descriptive commit comments, you may not need to rely on being able to compare line-by-line diffs to see what's changed between versions.

I think the moral of the story is that git is a somewhat suboptimal tool for this purpose and it whether it's helpful at all depends far more on your habits and discipline than on the functionality it provides.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

a somewhat suboptimal tool

AKA the best we have around.

If something appeared that handled opaque data better, it would take some thinking before creating the repository. Currently, there's no reason to think at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Outside of being able to comment on each revision when making a commit, I guess I don't see what benefit this provides that regular, automated backups (such as Time Machine) don't.