bazaar for documents -- facets

[Ben Finney]

"Rustom Mody" <rustompmody at gmail.com> writes:

> Bazaar is used mainly for source code versioning.  I was wondering if
> it could also be of use for managing documents.

I routinely use Bazaar for this purpose; it works well.

> The differences I see are:
> 1. A document is likely to be much simpler than a code project  -- 1
> single file would be quite natural
> 2. Sharing history of multiple documents may or may not be meaningful

The above two seem to apply just as well to programs as documents.

> 3. Facets
> 
> A facet is like a revision/version but is in a sense orthogonal.  For
> example one may want to maintain print and web facets of a document.

To avoid duplication of the document (and the inevitable unintented
divergence), this is best done by rendering both forms from a third,
source form of the document.

For example by maintaining the document as reStructuredText, and
rendering HTML and LaTeX from that via an automated process.

> Or a salesperson wanting to make a pitch to a customer may wish to
> take a ready template for the product and tailor it to a particular
> customer. A close approx to the need for facets in the software dev
> world is when a software needs to be packaged for two or more OSes.

This sounds like the salesperson wants to branch from the existing
document. I do this fairly often with Bazaar and find branches work
fine.

> The key difference between a facet and a version is that versions
> are intended to be merged into a final single product, whereas a
> facet is intended to be different from other facets throughout its
> lifetime.

The branch metaphor fits better, then.

> The key requirement for this is that one needs to be able to commit
> into internal (non-tip) branches. ie if I have an original doc O with
> two versions for customer Alice and Ben:
> 
>    A
>   /
> O
>   \
>    B
> 
> If I change the A tip then only the Alice version changes
> Likewise for B and Ben
> But I may also want to change O and have the changes available for
> Alice, Ben and all other yet to be made facets.

So O, A, and B are all good candidates for Bazaar breanches with O as
the common ancestor.

-- 
 \       “If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it |
  `\     works, we've already failed.” —Peter Lee, Disney corporation, |
_o__)                                                             2005 |
Ben Finney