The document summarizes Mark Matienzo's failed presentation on using distributed version control systems (DVCS) for archival metadata. He chose to use Mercurial because it was fast and simple to use, but struggled with diffing and patching XML documents due to its hierarchical structure and lack of standardization for expressing patches. The presentation failed to effectively convey these challenges.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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