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<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><title>Preface</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/support/styles.css" type="text/css"><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.74.3"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="Mercurial: The Definitive Guide"><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="Mercurial: The Definitive Guide"><link rel="prev" href="index.html" title="Mercurial: The Definitive Guide"><link rel="next" href="how-did-we-get-here.html" title="Chapter 1. How did we get here?"><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Comments" href="/feeds/comments/"><link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/png" href="/support/figs/favicon.png"><script type="text/javascript" src="/support/jquery-min.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="/support/form.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="/support/hsbook.js"></script></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><h2 class="booktitle"><a href="/">Mercurial: The Definitive Guide</a><span class="authors">by Bryan O'Sullivan</span></h2></div><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Preface</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="index.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="how-did-we-get-here.html">Next</a></td></tr></table></div><div class="preface" lang="en" id="chap:preface"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title">Preface</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="preface.html#id321829">Technical storytelling</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="preface.html#id330285">Thank you for supporting Mercurial</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="preface.html#id296114">Acknowledgments</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="preface.html#id298254">Conventions Used in This Book</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="preface.html#id341884">Using Code Examples</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="preface.html#id297605">Safari® Books Online</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="preface.html#id297646">How to Contact Us</a></span></dt></dl></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both" id="id321829">Technical storytelling</h2></div></div></div><p id="x_72e"><a name="x_72e"></a>A few years ago, when I wanted to explain why I believed
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that distributed revision control is important, the field was
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then so new that there was almost no published literature to
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refer people to.</p><p id="x_72f"><a name="x_72f"></a>Although at that time I spent some time working on the
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internals of Mercurial itself, I switched to writing this book
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because that seemed like the most effective way to help the
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software to reach a wide audience, along with the idea that
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revision control ought to be distributed in nature. I publish
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the book online under a liberal license for the same
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reason: to get the word out.</p><p id="x_730"><a name="x_730"></a>There's a familiar rhythm to a good software book that
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closely resembles telling a story: What is this thing? Why does
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it matter? How will it help me? How do I use it? In this
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book, I try to answer those questions for distributed revision
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control in general, and for Mercurial in particular.</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both" id="id330285">Thank you for supporting Mercurial</h2></div></div></div><p id="x_731"><a name="x_731"></a>By purchasing a copy of this book, you are supporting the
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continued development and freedom of Mercurial in particular,
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and of open source and free software in general. O'Reilly Media
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and I are donating my royalties on the sales of this book to the
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Software Freedom Conservancy (<a class="ulink" href="http://www.softwarefreedom.org/" target="_top">http://www.softwarefreedom.org/</a>)
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which provides clerical and legal support to Mercurial and a
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number of other prominent and worthy open source software
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projects.</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both" id="id296114">Acknowledgments</h2></div></div></div><p id="x_732"><a name="x_732"></a>This book would not exist were it not for the efforts of
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Matt Mackall, the author and project lead of Mercurial. He is
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ably assisted by hundreds of volunteer contributors across the
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world.</p><p id="x_733"><a name="x_733"></a>My children, Cian and Ruairi, always stood ready to help me
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to unwind with wonderful, madcap little-boy games. I'd also
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like to thank my ex-wife, Shannon, for her support.</p><p id="x_734"><a name="x_734"></a>My colleagues and friends provided help and support in
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innumerable ways. This list of people is necessarily very
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incomplete: Stephen Hahn, Karyn Ritter, Bonnie Corwin, James
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Vasile, Matt Norwood, Eben Moglen, Bradley Kuhn, Robert Walsh,
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Jeremy Fitzhardinge, Rachel Chalmers.</p><p id="x_735"><a name="x_735"></a>I developed this book in the open, posting drafts of
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chapters to the book web site as I completed them. Readers then
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submitted feedback using a web application that I developed. By
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the time I finished writing the book, more than 100 people had
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submitted comments, an amazing number considering that the
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comment system was live for only about two months towards the
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end of the writing process.</p><p id="x_736"><a name="x_736"></a>I would particularly like to recognize the following people,
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who between them contributed over a third of the total number of
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comments. I would like to thank them for their care and effort
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in providing so much detailed feedback.</p><p id="x_737"><a name="x_737"></a>Martin Geisler, Damien Cassou, Alexey Bakhirkin, Till Plewe,
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Dan Himes, Paul Sargent, Gokberk Hamurcu, Matthijs van der
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Vleuten, Michael Chermside, John Mulligan, Jordi Fita, Jon
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Parise.</p><p id="x_738"><a name="x_738"></a>I also want to acknowledge the help of the many people who
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caught errors and provided helpful suggestions throughout the
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book.</p><p id="x_739"><a name="x_739"></a>Jeremy W. Sherman, Brian Mearns, Vincent Furia, Iwan
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Luijks, Billy Edwards, Andreas Sliwka, Paweł Sołyga, Eric
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Hanchrow, Steve Nicolai, Michał Masłowski, Kevin Fitch, Johan
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Holmberg, Hal Wine, Volker Simonis, Thomas P Jakobsen, Ted
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Stresen-Reuter, Stephen Rasku, Raphael Das Gupta, Ned
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Batchelder, Lou Keeble, Li Linxiao, Kao Cardoso Félix, Joseph
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Wecker, Jon Prescot, Jon Maken, John Yeary, Jason Harris,
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Geoffrey Zheng, Fredrik Jonson, Ed Davies, David Zumbrunnen,
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David Mercer, David Cabana, Ben Karel, Alan Franzoni, Yousry
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Abdallah, Whitney Young, Vinay Sajip, Tom Towle, Tim Ottinger,
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Thomas Schraitle, Tero Saarni, Ted Mielczarek, Svetoslav
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Agafonkin, Shaun Rowland, Rocco Rutte, Polo-Francois Poli,
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Philip Jenvey, Petr Tesałék, Peter R. Annema, Paul Bonser,
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Olivier Scherler, Olivier Fournier, Nick Parker, Nick Fabry,
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Nicholas Guarracino, Mike Driscoll, Mike Coleman, Mietek Bák,
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Michael Maloney, László Nagy, Kent Johnson, Julio Nobrega, Jord
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Fita, Jonathan March, Jonas Nockert, Jim Tittsler, Jeduan
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Cornejo Legorreta, Jan Larres, James Murphy, Henri Wiechers,
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Hagen Möbius, Gábor Farkas, Fabien Engels, Evert Rol, Evan
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Willms, Eduardo Felipe Castegnaro, Dennis Decker Jensen, Deniz
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Dogan, David Smith, Daed Lee, Christine Slotty, Charles Merriam,
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Guillaume Catto, Brian Dorsey, Bob Nystrom, Benoit Boissinot,
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Avi Rosenschein, Andrew Watts, Andrew Donkin, Alexey Rodriguez,
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Ahmed Chaudhary.</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both" id="id298254">Conventions Used in This Book</h2></div></div></div><p id="x_73a"><a name="x_73a"></a>The following typographical conventions are used in this
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book:</p><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">Italic</span></dt><dd><p id="x_73b"><a name="x_73b"></a>Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames,
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and file extensions.</p></dd><dt><span class="term"><code class="literal">Constant width</code></span></dt><dd><p id="x_73c"><a name="x_73c"></a>Used for program listings, as well as within
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paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable
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or function names, databases, data types, environment
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variables, statements, and keywords.</p></dd><dt><span class="term"><strong class="userinput"><code>Constant width bold</code></strong></span></dt><dd><p id="x_73d"><a name="x_73d"></a>Shows commands or other text that should be typed
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literally by the user.</p></dd><dt><span class="term"><em class="replaceable"><code>Constant width italic</code></em></span></dt><dd><p id="x_73e"><a name="x_73e"></a>Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied
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values or by values determined by context.</p></dd></dl></div><div class="tip"><table border="0" summary="Tip"><tr><td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25"><img alt="[Tip]" src="/support/figs/tip.png"></td><th align="left">Tip</th></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><p id="x_73f"><a name="x_73f"></a>This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general
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note.</p></td></tr></table></div><div class="caution"><table border="0" summary="Caution"><tr><td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25"><img alt="[Caution]" src="/support/figs/caution.png"></td><th align="left">Caution</th></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><p id="x_740"><a name="x_740"></a>This icon indicates a warning or caution.</p></td></tr></table></div></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both" id="id341884">Using Code Examples</h2></div></div></div><p id="x_741"><a name="x_741"></a>This book is here to help you get your job done. In general,
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you may use the code in this book in your programs and
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documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission
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unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For
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example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from
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this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a
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CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission.
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Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example
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code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant
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amount of example code from this book into your product’s
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documentation does require permission.</p><p id="x_742"><a name="x_742"></a>We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An
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attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and
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ISBN. For example: “<span class="emphasis"><em>Book Title</em></span> by Some
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Author. Copyright 2008 O’Reilly Media, Inc.,
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978-0-596-xxxx-x.”</p><p id="x_743"><a name="x_743"></a>If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use
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or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at
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<code class="email"><<a class="email" href="mailto:permissions@oreilly.com">permissions@oreilly.com</a>></code>.</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both" id="id297605">Safari® Books Online</h2></div></div></div><div class="note"><table border="0" summary="Note"><tr><td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25"><img alt="[Note]" src="/support/figs/note.png"></td><th align="left">Note</th></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><p id="x_744"><a name="x_744"></a>When you see a Safari® Books Online icon on the cover of
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