On Building Git for Lawyers

I remember a post on here a few years ago about someone who had tried doing this and failed. I don't remember the details but you may be able to find it if you search well.

My recollection of his takeaway was that lawyers actually didn't want a lot of the things git offered. For example, they always wanted to be using the latest version -- the abstraction of multiple branches where multiple people independently worked on things then merged them back together wasn't quite how most lawyers worked. And the other big thing was a network problem: a lawyer has to us microsoft office's version control because the opposing team is going to use it, so even if you use some better editor software it still has to be sent as a word file showing the tracked changes to the other side.

I'm skeptic about testimonials like this. Users often don't know how to communicate what they need.

For example, "they always wanted to be using the latest version". Was that said _before_ or _after_ git was vaguely explained to them?

Maybe showing a working prototype has a different effect than explaining branches and commits.

> still has to be sent as a word file showing the tracked changes to the other side.

Dude spent a lot of time understanding docx. This sounds like a feature he could implement if he wanted to (Export changes to classic word...).

>Users often don't know how to communicate what they need.

No, quite the opposite. Too often developers tell users what the developers think they need with little to no understanding of what the users really want, which is the parent comment's point.