Speaking of Standards

As someone writing Internet-Drafts for submission to the IETF, collaborating with co-authors always involves some challenges. Do you send the txt or XML around to co-authors in an email? Do you put them on a website? Do you try to use a version control system? Mostly with my co-authors we wind up shipping docs around via email… but whose is the most authoritative? Who has the master?

To try to help a bit on my own end, I’m trying out using Github to post my files in a public git repository. For those wise in the ways of git, the repo is at:

http://github.com/danyork/internet-drafts-york

Those who don’t know what I’m talking about might want to check out the two git tutorial videos I did earlier this year (and yes, I still need to post part #3).

Now I’m not sure git is the ideal tool for this task. The problem with Internet-Drafts is that the file name changes between versions. So one version is:

draft-york-sipping-p-charge-info-05.xml

and then when I want to do some edits to the doc to submit the next version, it needs to be renamed:

draft-york-sipping-p-charge-info-06.xml

In order for only the most recent file to be in the repo, yet still have the history intact, what it seems I need to do is use the git mv command to move the file from one name to another. So it’s basically:

git mv filename1 filename2
git commit -a

Write your commit message, and then naturally push to Github so that it has the most recent. Now I need to do this mv before I start editing it.

I also haven’t started using this with any co-authors yet. Mostly right now I’ve been working through how I will personally use it. However, the good news is that with having all the files in a repo, I can easily do a diff against what I have and what a co-author has. By using Github, I also have a backup of all the files out “in the cloud”. And mostly, I can point people to a development version of a file before it’s been formally submitted to the IETF.

I’m still working through this process… it’s definitely still an experiment. Stay tuned as I write more about what I find out. (And if you are an I-D author and have any great comments about how you manage your Internet-Drafts, I’d enjoy hearing them, too.)