Using git during PP

[davem2]

I would also be interested in seeing how Git works for PPing, and what advantages it might have. I have just started playing with it a little bit for that purpose, and so far I'm not sure I understand what the benefits would be, or what the best workflow would be. At this point I suspect that most PPers would find it to be another tool they'd have to install and learn to use, and without some clearly obvious advantages over simply saving multiple copies as the work proceeds I'm not sure how many would choose to use it..

@davem2: Perhaps you could describe your workflow for us? As it's not really related to the current discussion, it might be better to open a new Issue here against ppgen, and we can have a discussion there.

The biggest advantage to using git (or any version control) during PPing is the ability to save multiple snapshots of the project. Yes, this can be done by saving a copy under a different name, but this kind of thing is what version control was made to replace.

The one advantage saving a copy under a different name has is simplicity, everyone knows how to copy a file. I don't think git is for everyone (command line is scary), but for those who are willing to learn I think its worthwhile to use. The manual process of saving a copy of the file then doing a rename is translated to something like this using git:

git commit -am "Complete title page markup"

In my opinion that is just as easy as copy/rename.

The advantages of using git instead of multiple file copies are many:

• Compare what changed between any version, or working copy (this is a big one)
• Describe a given version better than a file name can
• Keep project clutter down
• Save disk space
• Encourages taking many snapshots
• Automatic history of what you have done
• Easy to double check for mistakes after an error-prone process (like applying a regex to the whole file)
• .. more

I put up a copy of a book I'm in the middle of PPing here: https://github.com/davem2/pp-example

todo.txt is my "checklist" Makefile might be of interest.. it automates building ppgen txt/html from source, image resizing/trim whitespace (when change detected in master illustrations), packaging for release/sr, running suite of error checks.. html validation

My commit history for the ppgen src: https://github.com/davem2/pp-example/commits/master/harpers-outdoor-book-for-boys-src.txt

My work-flow is detailed in todo.txt. I'm still learning PPing so my checklist is changing frequently and may be incomplete or have some errors.

Basically I work my way down todo.txt and commit after that stage of the process is completed. I have git commit commands with an appropriate commit message as the last step so I can just cut and paste once I've finished that stage.

If I step away from the project for a while and forget what is left to do I can always do a "git shortlog" to see whats been done already.

If I made a bunch of changes and am paranoid that something was changed that I didn't want, I can do a "git diff" to view everything that's been changed since the last commit.

If I want to see what corrections I made for a TN, I can do a diff between the step where I resolve [\ notes and the previous.

[ghost]

Dave, is "Using git during PP #15" an issue I should be closing? Seems like the goal should be getting the number of "issues" to zero. Should that be in the ppgen wiki either on DP or on GitHub rather than being an open issue? Thanks.

[davem2]

Closing it is fine, Walt and Nigel were asking about my workflow and the advantages to using it and this is the closest thing github has to a discussion thread.