Hello all, perhaps this is a bit off-topic so please bear with me. Some regulars on this forum were instrumental in developing these thougths though which is what encouraed me to post here.
I am a researcher doing some of my writing in Multimarkdown text files and put my work on a portable harddrive which I carry home after work, synchronize to my home computer and carry on working there. Ditto for the reverse.
After reading a series of inspiring articles about how to use subversion repositories for academic writers over on Practex journal I am beginning to think that I could make better use of my resources. Here is what I plan to do:
Go to work, read, write, take notes etc. Some of this takes place in textfiles, some will reside XML files (Tinderbox), and some also in binary files at the end of the day. I have access to a server that I would like to push all my changes and new data to and then go home. From home, I would like to pull all changes to my home computer and carry on.
1) Will the version control systems compare whole lines or do some kind of document comparison trying to find identical blocks regardless of (soft) line breaks?
2) what I don't know is how well this system will work for binary files, e.g. Aperture libraries, Word files from colleagues etc. Ideally, I'd like to just send the changed bits of files, not all files that have changed to save bandwith and time. If something went wrong I would want to go back in time. I am working on a localized system (meaning non-US) in case that is presenting a problem.
I am not afraid of the command line but I have no experience with version control whatsoever because I was left with the impression that it was of little use outside source code development. Although I do some reading about subversion, git, mercurial, bazaar etc I need some guidance if I am barking up the right tree in the first place.
I would greatly appreaciate your thoughts Prion