Re: coaxing scientists to use cvs

[LEE Sau Dan]

>>>>> "marko" == marko  <address@hidden> writes:

    marko> Hi, I also use cvs for LaTeX sources and have the same
    marko> problem with the diffs.

    marko> It always depends on how you format your sources. With code
    marko> it's easier, much easier. Every line contains a certain
    marko> piece of code.  But text source can't be handled in this
    marko> simple way.

Since LaTeX doesn't care where you start a new line
(except at double-newlines),
my strategy is:
never refill/reformat existing paragraphs.
That means if I insert text,
then I'll have to break long lines myself.
But I've developed the strategyor habit
of putting one logical unit
(e.g.  a sentence, a phrase, start of a long $math$)
on its own line.
So, that's not a problem anymore.
This strategy has the advantage
that the diffs reflect better the logical units
that I'm changing.


    marko> I'd guess CVS is not so well-suited for this job. Of course
    marko> keeping the revisions is essential, but for the diffs you'd
    marko> need something else in that case. 

Emac's 'ediff'  is very helpful here.   It let's you  go through diffs
visually,  refining  the  diff  output  to  highly  only  the  changed
characters!  ediff's merge is  also wonderful when handling files with
merge CONFLICTS.  It displays the  2 old versions and the merge result
simultaneous on  the screen, letting  you go through  each conflicting
block one by  one.  For each conflict block, you  can choose to retain
the  text from  old version  A  by pressing  simply "a",  or from  old
version  B by  pressing simply  "b".  'ediff'  used together  with the
'pcl-cvs' package--a Emacs frontend for CVS--is really wonderful.



-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     李守敦                          address@hidden

E-mail: address@hidden
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee