For example, if I want to collaborate on making a (non-computer related) textbook with someone, and we want to use git as a version control system. Should we use github/codeberg for this or is there a platform that’s more suitable for using git in nontechnical contexts?
You could totally use GitHub for this if you format it with LaTeX or Markdown.
Seconding this! I did my science writing in grad school with git and markdown.
awesome thanks
You can also use typst. It’s a modern alternative for LaTeX.
oh interesting never heard of it. are there any advantages over using LaTeX?
LaTeX has been around for a lot longer, and Typst is one of the projects looking to replace it
Typst is a lot more intuitive and easier to use, but it might be missing some packages and tools that were designed for LaTeX.
For your purposes, I think it would work just fine
interesting thanks
deleted by creator
There’s a different hub, where people all share their porn. A porn hub if you will.
It’s called Xhamster.
And here i was, thinking there was only YouPorn.
Git is for text in general, not only for code. As long as it’s human readable (I don’t know if doc or odt files can be used), git can work with it.
I don’t know if doc or odt files can be used
Much easier to keep the content in plain text as markdown/LaTeX/whatever markup language and then use pandoc or pdflatex to convert it to docx/odt/pdf/HTML/whatever as needed.
There are ways to store office formats as single XML files, look up “flat XML ODF”. Those are more suitable for repos than ordinary zipped ODF or OOXML files.
diff wouldn’t be any useful but it’ll still work
If it helps, a number of courses at my university used open source git based textbooks. For example, you can replicate this Statistics textbook using any static site generator designed for documentation: https://moderndive.com/ (https://github.com/moderndive/ModernDive_book/)
We use vitepress for our docs: https://fedecan.ca/en/guide/get-started
Or you can get even simpler by using plain markdown files organized into folders.
In my opinion, it’s better to start off simple while writing the content since then you can pick a tool based on what type of formatting you end up needing
Thanks for the info.
In my opinion, it’s better to start off simple while writing the content since then you can pick a tool based on what type of formatting you end up needing
Yeah I guess there should be rudimentary markdown to LaTeX translation programs, right?
Yeah I guess there should be rudimentary markdown to LaTeX translation programs, right?
I haven’t tried any, but I would think so yes. You can probably run a script over the files to accomplish the same thing :)
Yeah a script sounds like a good idea, thanks!
pandoc. Converts markdown to html, latex, pdf, and Word.
It serves as the backend behind basically every program that support some kind of rendering of markdown, e.g. quarto, ipython notebooks.
Pandoc - Pandoc User’s Guide - https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html
Plenty of people use git hosting to host non-code, like documentation, books written in markdown/LaTeX, etc. I personally use git to maintain a few personal wikis.
Different git forges will have different rules about what content they allow. GitHub definitely allows non-code. I’ve seen Codeberg repos be used for non-code too. Codeberg’s only requirement is that you only host free (as in freedom) content, so I suppose for non-code that means using an appropriate CC licence for example. I can’t imagine any of the popular git hosting sites taking issue with someone hosting their book, unless you’re hosting, like, the whole of Wikipedia or something.
If you’re into self hosting and you want to collaborate with other writers, there’s Bookstack
Overleaf also has a self-hosted option in case you want to collaborate in LaTeX projects.
interesting. how does it do with collaboration? the guy im working with has no tech knowledge really so i dont want to make it too complicated for him
It’s been quite a few years since I used it, but iirc users log in and have access to the chapters and pages that already exist, so they are able to edit them as they see fit. Likewise they can create new chapters and/or pages that would be accessible to other users. Writing is done on a wysiwyg interface like with word processor apps. I recall it being pretty easy to use, so less tech-savvy users who can write a word doc should not have too many issues.
Yeah, most academics I know collaborate on git. They have zero code. Just use it for datasets and such.
Another example is datasets on covid infections and deaths from John Hopkins Uni. They used github.
I’m consistently surprised by the number of my friends that use github who are not coders.
There’s a pizza recipe on github.
We always used Overleaf (LaTeX) for assignments because we couldnt figure out how to compile it on 3 different OSs lol
I have been tinkering with this idea for a project file oriented version control software
I’m not sure if it’s in a state that I can share it yet but if you want to take a look I’m calling it duh.
I plan to eventually create an entire DuhHuh to serve as GitHub for everyone.
Interesting, thanks for sharing it. I hope DuhHuh goes well.
https://once.com/writebook maybe?
deleted by creator
Google sheets or Microsoft office. I don’t know if a dedicated platform exists but I would not expect a large demand given the alternatives.
Any version control system works for this.
If you want something fairly user friendly, maybe look at Joplin or Logseq which are both specifically for text.
I feel like there was a radiolab or freakonomics episode about this exact problem. What am I thinking of?
