how i failed to present
on using DVCS for
archival metadata
mark a. matienzo (anarchivist)
the new york public library

i failed, epically
http://flickr.com/photos/pbo31/96798574/

what was the
problem?
http://flickr.com/photos/anarchivist/2679920292

not dvcs
http://flickr.com/photos/mccord/68214477/

picking a dvcs
wasn’t hard
http://flickr.com/photos/iandavid/3036898936/

mercurial
http://flickr.com/photos/bionerd/2910589154/

why hg?
http://flickr.com/photos/nodens2k/3180613206/

fast
http://flickr.com/photos/wallyg/451576049/

simple
http://flickr.com/photos/gtstuff/88422470/

why not some
other dvcs?
http://flickr.com/photos/gregous/450622287/

git
http://flickr.com/photos/44458147@N00/263228000/

bzr
http://flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/1396181629/

monotone
http://flickr.com/photos/7891209@N04/1794529842/

workflow was
easy
http://flickr.com/photos/unavoidablegrain/2430839352/

diffing & patching
http://flickr.com/photos/paulnich/386644273/

diff is line-based
http://flickr.com/photos/yanivg/95442635/

xml has hierarchy
http://flickr.com/photos/opal_krusch/2964612368/

diffing xml
http://flickr.com/photos/glenpa/1733235059/

canonical xml?
http://flickr.com/photos/caitlinburke/2245965451/

several choices
http://flickr.com/photos/sean_oneill/3117627070/

sample implementations
(there are many more)
• •
ssddiff xmlunit
• •
xdiff deltaxml
• •
logilab xmldiff microsoft xmldiff
• •
ladiff xml treediff
• •
xydiff/jxydiff sun diffmk

http://flickr.com/photos/trainor/451799414/

expressing
patches
http://flickr.com/photos/ktylerconk/3097200074

no standard way
http://flickr.com/photos/manfrys/2226178289/

patch/merge formats
• xupdate
• deltaxml
• logilab edit script (not xml)
• other edit script formats

no interoperability
http://flickr.com/photos/ppdigital/2058130092/

hard to
understand
http://flickr.com/photos/epc/418915620

hard to visualize
http://flickr.com/photos/jwm_angrymonkey/2467009351

sorry
http://flickr.com/photos/darabidduckie/2733770664

(all photos CC licensed)
http://flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/2668888527