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| author | dukebody <dukebody@gmail.com> |
|---|---|
| date | Sun Oct 11 20:17:05 2009 +0200 (2009-10-11) |
| parents | acf9dc5f088d |
| children |
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3 <preface id="chap:preface">
4 <?dbhtml filename="preface.html"?>
5 <title>Preface</title>
7 <sect1>
8 <title>Technical storytelling</title>
10 <para id="x_72e">A few years ago, when I wanted to explain why I believed
11 that distributed revision control is important, the field was
12 then so new that there was almost no published literature to
13 refer people to.</para>
15 <para id="x_72f">Although at that time I spent some time working on the
16 internals of Mercurial itself, I switched to writing this book
17 because that seemed like the most effective way to help the
18 software to reach a wide audience, along with the idea that
19 revision control ought to be distributed in nature. I publish
20 the book online under a liberal license for the same
21 reason: to get the word out.</para>
23 <para id="x_730">There's a familiar rhythm to a good software book that
24 closely resembles telling a story: What is this thing? Why does
25 it matter? How will it help me? How do I use it? In this
26 book, I try to answer those questions for distributed revision
27 control in general, and for Mercurial in particular.</para>
28 </sect1>
30 <sect1>
31 <title>Thank you for supporting Mercurial</title>
33 <para id="x_731">By purchasing a copy of this book, you are supporting the
34 continued development and freedom of Mercurial in particular,
35 and of open source and free software in general. O'Reilly Media
36 and I are donating my royalties on the sales of this book to the
37 Software Freedom Conservancy (<ulink
38 url="http://www.softwarefreedom.org/">http://www.softwarefreedom.org/</ulink>)
39 which provides clerical and legal support to Mercurial and a
40 number of other prominent and worthy open source software
41 projects.</para>
42 </sect1>
44 <sect1>
45 <title>Acknowledgments</title>
47 <para id="x_732">This book would not exist were it not for the efforts of
48 Matt Mackall, the author and project lead of Mercurial. He is
49 ably assisted by hundreds of volunteer contributors across the
50 world.</para>
52 <para id="x_733">My children, Cian and Ruairi, always stood ready to help me
53 to unwind with wonderful, madcap little-boy games. I'd also
54 like to thank my ex-wife, Shannon, for her support.</para>
56 <para id="x_734">My colleagues and friends provided help and support in
57 innumerable ways. This list of people is necessarily very
58 incomplete: Stephen Hahn, Karyn Ritter, Bonnie Corwin, James
59 Vasile, Matt Norwood, Eben Moglen, Bradley Kuhn, Robert Walsh,
60 Jeremy Fitzhardinge, Rachel Chalmers.</para>
62 <para id="x_735">I developed this book in the open, posting drafts of
63 chapters to the book web site as I completed them. Readers then
64 submitted feedback using a web application that I developed. By
65 the time I finished writing the book, more than 100 people had
66 submitted comments, an amazing number considering that the
67 comment system was live for only about two months towards the
68 end of the writing process.</para>
70 <para id="x_736">I would particularly like to recognize the following people,
71 who between them contributed over a third of the total number of
72 comments. I would like to thank them for their care and effort
73 in providing so much detailed feedback.</para>
75 <para id="x_737">Martin Geisler, Damien Cassou, Alexey Bakhirkin, Till Plewe,
76 Dan Himes, Paul Sargent, Gokberk Hamurcu, Matthijs van der
77 Vleuten, Michael Chermside, John Mulligan, Jordi Fita, Jon
78 Parise.</para>
80 <para id="x_738">I also want to acknowledge the help of the many people who
81 caught errors and provided helpful suggestions throughout the
82 book.</para>
84 <para id="x_739">Jeremy W. Sherman, Brian Mearns, Vincent Furia, Iwan
85 Luijks, Billy Edwards, Andreas Sliwka, Paweł Sołyga, Eric
86 Hanchrow, Steve Nicolai, Michał Masłowski, Kevin Fitch, Johan
87 Holmberg, Hal Wine, Volker Simonis, Thomas P Jakobsen, Ted
88 Stresen-Reuter, Stephen Rasku, Raphael Das Gupta, Ned
89 Batchelder, Lou Keeble, Li Linxiao, Kao Cardoso Félix, Joseph
90 Wecker, Jon Prescot, Jon Maken, John Yeary, Jason Harris,
91 Geoffrey Zheng, Fredrik Jonson, Ed Davies, David Zumbrunnen,
92 David Mercer, David Cabana, Ben Karel, Alan Franzoni, Yousry
93 Abdallah, Whitney Young, Vinay Sajip, Tom Towle, Tim Ottinger,
94 Thomas Schraitle, Tero Saarni, Ted Mielczarek, Svetoslav
95 Agafonkin, Shaun Rowland, Rocco Rutte, Polo-Francois Poli,
96 Philip Jenvey, Petr Tesałék, Peter R. Annema, Paul Bonser,
97 Olivier Scherler, Olivier Fournier, Nick Parker, Nick Fabry,
98 Nicholas Guarracino, Mike Driscoll, Mike Coleman, Mietek Bák,
99 Michael Maloney, László Nagy, Kent Johnson, Julio Nobrega, Jord
100 Fita, Jonathan March, Jonas Nockert, Jim Tittsler, Jeduan
101 Cornejo Legorreta, Jan Larres, James Murphy, Henri Wiechers,
102 Hagen Möbius, Gábor Farkas, Fabien Engels, Evert Rol, Evan
103 Willms, Eduardo Felipe Castegnaro, Dennis Decker Jensen, Deniz
104 Dogan, David Smith, Daed Lee, Christine Slotty, Charles Merriam,
105 Guillaume Catto, Brian Dorsey, Bob Nystrom, Benoit Boissinot,
106 Avi Rosenschein, Andrew Watts, Andrew Donkin, Alexey Rodriguez,
107 Ahmed Chaudhary.</para>
108 </sect1>
110 <sect1>
111 <title>Conventions Used in This Book</title>
113 <para id="x_73a">The following typographical conventions are used in this
114 book:</para>
116 <variablelist>
117 <varlistentry>
118 <term>Italic</term>
120 <listitem>
121 <para id="x_73b">Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames,
122 and file extensions.</para>
123 </listitem>
124 </varlistentry>
126 <varlistentry>
127 <term><literal>Constant width</literal></term>
129 <listitem>
130 <para id="x_73c">Used for program listings, as well as within
131 paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable
132 or function names, databases, data types, environment
133 variables, statements, and keywords.</para>
134 </listitem>
135 </varlistentry>
137 <varlistentry>
138 <term><userinput>Constant width bold</userinput></term>
140 <listitem>
141 <para id="x_73d">Shows commands or other text that should be typed
142 literally by the user.</para>
143 </listitem>
144 </varlistentry>
146 <varlistentry>
147 <term><replaceable>Constant width italic</replaceable></term>
149 <listitem>
150 <para id="x_73e">Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied
151 values or by values determined by context.</para>
152 </listitem>
153 </varlistentry>
154 </variablelist>
156 <tip>
157 <para id="x_73f">This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general
158 note.</para>
159 </tip>
161 <caution>
162 <para id="x_740">This icon indicates a warning or caution.</para>
163 </caution>
164 </sect1>
166 <sect1>
167 <title>Using Code Examples</title>
169 <para id="x_741">This book is here to help you get your job done. In general,
170 you may use the code in this book in your programs and
171 documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission
172 unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For
173 example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from
174 this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a
175 CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission.
176 Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example
177 code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant
178 amount of example code from this book into your product’s
179 documentation does require permission.</para>
181 <para id="x_742">We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An
182 attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and
183 ISBN. For example: “<emphasis>Book Title</emphasis> by Some
184 Author. Copyright 2008 O’Reilly Media, Inc.,
185 978-0-596-xxxx-x.”</para>
187 <para id="x_743">If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use
188 or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at
189 <email>permissions@oreilly.com</email>.</para>
190 </sect1>
192 <sect1>
193 <title>Safari® Books Online</title>
195 <note role="safarienabled">
196 <para id="x_744">When you see a Safari® Books Online icon on the cover of
197 your favorite technology book, that means the book is
198 available online through the O’Reilly Network Safari
199 Bookshelf.</para>
200 </note>
202 <para id="x_745">Safari offers a solution that’s better than e-books. It’s a
203 virtual library that lets you easily search thousands of top
204 tech books, cut and paste code samples, download chapters, and
205 find quick answers when you need the most accurate, current
206 information. Try it for free at <ulink role="orm:hideurl:ital"
207 url="http://my.safaribooksonline.com/?portal=oreilly">http://my.safaribooksonline.com</ulink>.</para>
208 </sect1>
210 <sect1>
211 <title>How to Contact Us</title>
213 <para id="x_746">Please address comments and questions concerning this book
214 to the publisher:</para>
216 <simplelist type="vert">
217 <member>O’Reilly Media, Inc.</member>
219 <member>1005 Gravenstein Highway North</member>
221 <member>Sebastopol, CA 95472</member>
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225 <member>707-829-0515 (international or local)</member>
227 <member>707 829-0104 (fax)</member>
228 </simplelist>
230 <para id="x_747">We have a web page for this book, where we list errata,
231 examples, and any additional information. You can access this
232 page at:</para>
234 <simplelist type="vert">
235 <member><ulink url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/<catalog
236 page>"></ulink></member>
237 </simplelist>
239 <remark>Don’t forget to update the <url> attribute,
240 too.</remark>
242 <para id="x_748">To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send
243 email to:</para>
245 <simplelist type="vert">
246 <member><email>bookquestions@oreilly.com</email></member>
247 </simplelist>
249 <para id="x_749">For more information about our books, conferences, Resource
250 Centers, and the O’Reilly Network, see our web site at:</para>
252 <simplelist type="vert">
253 <member><ulink url="http://www.oreilly.com"></ulink></member>
254 </simplelist>
255 </sect1>
256 </preface>
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