On Tue, 2008-04-29 at 07:35 -0600, Clint Savage wrote:
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 12:12 AM, Karsten 'quaid' Wade kwade@redhat.com wrote: An answer for a question from IRC:
18:18 < subdivisions> hey all... anyone here know the best way to do editing/authoring offline? I have approx 2.5 hours a day on the train and I can't really get a cell signal. 18:18 < subdivisions> I can cut-andpaste from and back to the wiwki, but that seems a bit crude. Keith, let me introduce you to DocBook XML. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Tools#DocBook_XML http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/WorkFlow#Wiki_to_DocBook_XML What you need for the train is the following: * Checkout one or more guides to work on: Installation Guide Software Management Guide Security Guide (needs conversion) or ... * Obtain XML output from the wiki ready for conversion * Check out the build system/toolchain for Fedora Docs, and/or * Install 'publican' (candidate for inclusion in toolchain) * Optional virtualization instance to do install testing or other technical edits/writing You have everything you need in a Fedora install with the "Authoring and Publishing" group installed. While you are offline, keep notes about any troubles you have. Maybe write them as a blog entry to post when you get to your destination. Writing about your learning process and experience as a new contributor could bring some value and definitely interest. Just a few ideas off the top of my head. :) - Karsten --Another suggestion to add to this conversation is to consider the fact that internet access is unavailable. In this case, committing changes back to cvs is impossible because of its centralized nature, in comes git. With git-cvsimport you can save your changes in a repository, and commit as much as necessary and are able to retain your history. Once back to the more civilized world, one can do a git rebase --interactive, squash all of the commits to one (making a nice log message) and run git-cvsexportcommit after creating a patch and setting some variables.
Here's a good resource on how one might use git to keep revision history and allowing simple roll-back
http://issaris.blogspot.com/2005/11/cvs-to-git-and-back.html
git has pretty much become the de facto standard for new projects in and around Fedora. I don't think it's a stretch to say this is going to be the next $SCM, although I have no opinion (or insight) about it in any official way. Thanks for this really helpful information on how to use what little I've learned of git and apply it to our decrepit^Wtrusty ol' CVS. :-)