[ale] One file, two LANs

[Brian Pitts]

Mike Harrison wrote:
> This is the land of simple web based databases,
> Trying to share a file that will become out of sync
> or corrupted as multiple people edit/view/save/read it.
> There are ways, kludges and shims, but in reality what you need
> is a simple web based database editor.
> 
> Other ways include: Google App's - Sharing a spreadsheet.
> or one of the many groupware tools like eGroupware or iOffice
> that allow a person to 'check out' the spreadsheet for editing,
> which locks other people from writing over it while you have it.

Another idea: Store the spreadsheet in subversion [0]. It's 
well-documented and easy to set up. If you use TortoiseSVN [1] to 
integrate subversion with Windows Explorer, working with the file should 
be very easy for you coworkers.

If you can store the spreadsheet in csv format, subversion can merge 
simultaneous edits. If you require something more opaque (eg xls) that 
can't be merged, subversion supports locking.

[0] http://subversion.tigris.org/
[1] http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

-Brian