GitHub vs Penflip · 1:54am Jun 27th, 2014
Yes, this is a silly technical issue I shouldn't be worrying about with the amount I've been getting written.
Still: ficpushing to GitHub, or to Penflip?
What I want is to be able to dump stuff online where I can let anyone see it, without worrying about what stage of being readable it's in (fragments? Whatever.) or when if ever it will update (drops of an idea that's abandoned? That's okay.). These also keep track of every change made the same way I already do anyways, and let me make changes from any internet-connected computer. (The internet is a dangerous tool, but useful.)
GitHub, of course, is that newfangled sourcecode-sharing site. But, since it works with anything that can be done on a computer, it can be used for a heck of a lot more than just code. Where FiMfiction is a social network about reading and commenting on other people's stories, GitHub is about working on and commenting other people's projects--or rather, projects other people start.
Penflip bills itself as "GitHub for writers". It shuffles a bunch of git/GitHub complexity under the rug, and its builtin writing tools are tuned more for writing prose than for writing code. (Not that they'll be useful to me writing for FiMfiction.) I'm not saying it's a bad idea. It's just that I don't understand the site/tool itself, and it seems to me that there's already a GitHub for writers: GitHub.
GitHub looks like it would be more compatible with my mental style, but the I'm indifferent in reality: I'm working in emacs and directly in git.
Well, the obvious answer is that it has features that are better specialised for editing rich text but with proper version control.
I had my hopes up for a minute there, but unfortunately it seems to lack proper gdocs style comments which are absolutely vital for proper collaboration. I really wish there was version control in gdocs, but there's no way it's worth giving up comments for.
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Are you talking about Penflip? (Best guess based on context, I really have no clue what you're referring too.)
Penflip appears to have a comment system akin to what I think of as comments in gDocs. (Third section of their homepage, bottom 'demo' graphic. Watch George comment on the history chapter.) Not sure how it works. Not sure I'd want to. You thinking of chat instead?
Between git (real version control! :D) and I'd mostly be working offline anyways, I'm not sure it would affect me.
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I forgot to put the quoted text "It's just that I don't understand the site/tool itself, and it seems to me that there's already a GitHub for writers: GitHub." Sorry.
Also it appears to be able to track changes per word rather than per line. Per line is great for source code editing, but it's not so good for prose.
What that appears to be is the ability to leave a comment on a change. That's great for collaboration, but doesn't really fit with having an editor. You can't highlight a paragraph and comment "Twilight Sparkle feels out of character in this paragraph" or "I'm feeling like this bit is just talking heads in a void. Perhaps you could mention the surroundings a little more."
Proofreader works a little better. They can make their corrections directly because proofreader corrections are less controversial. But is there a way to accept each change individually? This, this, this, but I meant to split that infinitive, dammit.
You don't generally want this kind of granularity in software patches because a patch
tends to be all or nothing—source code is not quite the same as prose. So ultimately I can see why a tool specialised to prose could be really good.
Thanks for pointing this out. It looks pretty awesome. I'm already considering trying it out for a project.
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Hang on, I just found the way to leave gdoc style comments. Must have been blind or something. This thing is now officially awesome.