Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

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I am a firefighter and hobby/part-time developer. We have more manuals and SOP's than you can shake a stick at. They should be in source control so we can see how strategy and tactics evolve over time, who made the changes, diff's and/or allow "pull requests" from the field to change something for the better, as just one example.

Now, try to explain to your Chief or supervisor about how awesome Git is.. that is easy and I've done it. Then comes the part where you explain how to use it; The problem is the interface on both the CLI and GUI require a TON of "other" domain knowledge to use effectively. Abstract all that away at the same price point of Github and you will win a HUGE market.

We don't have IT budget to pay anyone to do this... nor buy the extremely expensive solutions that already exist. So we rely on email and ad hoc training to make sure everyone can stay abreast. Now, how many businesses not related to software development could benefit from Git or a similar DVCS?

That's a pretty interesting use case. I'm always interested in occupations with non-technical emphasis that are moving towards Git, GitHub, and source control in general.

I'd be really interested in hearing more about the problems you face, personally and within the firestation. If you'd like you can email me at my username [at] gmail.

Will do. Think about medical records or 911 call data in a git repo. This is evolutionary stuff that no one in the fire service is thinking about. Hell, our IT guru's can't seem to get clean data from one database to another. Its a sad state in .gov IT at the local level.

We used MS word with revision tracking on my VFD. Of course if the file is lost or corrupted- out of luck.

Have you all tried using some of the features built in to the editors like revision tracking or history a la google docs?

I know I'm starting to go apples to oranges here- but just tossing that out since those features are sometimes overlooked or forgotten about.

Hello Brother! Yes, we've used those... sadly they don't work "at scale." My department has 600 members and a lot of them have good ideas. They have to go through the chain-of-command to get those ideas heard. This method not only suffers from the telephone problem Ie. the idea is lost in translation. It also suffers from a Chief or Capitan not liking the idea(s) and never doing anything with it. Manuals and SOPs in a democratic environment where anyone could clone, make changes and submit pull-requests would be a manna from heaven.

In that case a Github wiki might be a good start. You get the version control, but there's enough abstracted away that it should be easy to get up and running with. Now, you just need everyone in your department to get a Github account...

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