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I am planning to use Git for writing my thesis with Latex. As Git is specifically designed for software development, would it be feasible for my requirements? If it is a good choice for me, then what special and unique features are available in Git which are ideal for writing a thesis. Also I want to know what precautions I should take before getting into the Git work flow. I am a complete beginner for Git, so what should be my starting point before I get into it.
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Git for writers While Git is famously a highly technical tool used by computer programmers, it's ideal for the modern author, and this article will demonstrate how it can change the way you write—and why you'd want it to.
The answer is in two parts: Yes, it's a very good idea to use an online repository with a versioning system to write your Masters thesis.
Git and GitHub do commits on pretty much any file type for writing, although it works best with plain text. If you write in Microsoft Word, it'll work, but you won't be able to see your past commits on the command line or in GitHub.
GitHub is a platform for open development (better scratch that) writing. So what you are doing is seen by anybody who cares about it: instant crowdsourced editing! Since it is open, it forces you to really make your writing open: you select a Creative Commons license from the get go.
There are some technical considerations and best practices. I am going for the second one, specifically for writing your thesis and/or papers. For the technical ones, you can check any git tutorial.
Define the directory structure for your thesis. You can change it later, and use git for tracking the changes. Having a good structure would make your life easier.
Work with multiple files (use include and/or input in LaTeX). You can split them by chapters or sections. This will make easier to track changes that involve specific parts of your thesis (e.g. git log content/introduction.tex).
Track only the files you are going to touch, not the ones auto-generated. Creating a proper .gitignore file will help you a lot (LaTeX generate plenty of working files).
As in programs, do micro-commits, that is: one commit per idea/feature/fix/activity.
Every time you commit, write meaningful messages (high level) that explains what you were trying to achieve in every change. After a week you might not remember what you tried to accomplish.
Keeping track of every activity/idea/fix [see (4) and (5)] could be very helpful to know how much you have done (using git log). You can write your advance report for your supervisor(s) based on git log. Even more, you can share the repository with your supervisor (using a web interface), and they can check whatever you have been doing in your thesis. For the next meeting, they will know what to expect (it will depend on how fond are your supervisors on following a RSS).
Using git will be useful for keeping you in a good mood (sometimes you would feel you have not done too much, but having track of every change will help you to keep things in perspective).
For every progress report you send, create a tag. For the next report, you can checkout both version and apply latexdiff. It will be useful for tracking changes between versions you submit for revision. This also will help you to check if you addressed the feedback you received for the previous report.
At last but not least, I recommend you to read "A successful Git branching model". It is a very short article on a git workflow. You can apply the same concepts when you write your thesis. For instance, if you are writing an experiment, you can create a branch for it, and merge it once it is "ready." If you have to revisit it later, it would be easier to see what were the changes involved and why.
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