Re: Version control software - a second questions

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM>]

At 01:11 PM 3/24/97 -0600, Chris Hamilton wrote:

>My question is this: do software version control packages tend to work
>well for documentation or is this a case of forcing a square peg into a
>round hole?

Actually, the doc process and the software development process have
a lot in common. The most worthwhile benefit of version control, for
docs or programs, is the ability to claim a particular file as your
own and so avoid the otherwise inevitable lost work when two people
change the same file concurrently.

True, many features that seem programming specific -- like the
build and test commands in StarTeam -- go under-utilized in the doc
process, but some documentation processes use them. And the major
benefits remain.

StarBase attempted to market a version control package that targeted
document creation back about three years ago (I worked on the docs
and the UI, Eric Ray was one of my beta testers). Unfortunately,
the borrowed document comparison utility was costly and the company's
marketing strategy was in flux, so it never got off the ground. But
the usability tests we did indicated that the version control model
was a good fit to the document creation process.

Sue Gallagher
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com
     -- The _Guide_ is definitive.
        Reality is frequently inaccurate.

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