[gst-devel] README-files in plugins/*

[Thomas Nyberg]

Since the plugins-directory keeps getting bigger and bigger, more
plugins are added, and more features are created for each plugin
there is no way to use them without reading through countless
lines of code.

Plugins introduce bugs, and some might not be so easy to use
without understanding of it's inner workings.
Since 0.2-release is soon out(any time now), and it's looking
nicer that before, most of the ductape replaces by glue and
real fixes, people might actually start to use it.

Most of the plugins have a maintainer, which should make them
more upto-date than before, but few plugins contains information
about their usage.

I think that all plugins should have a README-file of their
own, containing usage, known bugs, limitations, features
and perhaps even a little FAQ. Think man-page :)
This README-file should also contain a short description
of all the gtk_set/get_arg supported. 

If it comes to distributing the plugins in packages of
their own, documentation becomes more important. It is
always nice to be able to read an explanation about some
obscure feature of a mpg2fli-with-ogg-support-plugin,
instead of trying to read it out from the source.

Already, there's about 130000 lines of code in the plugin-dir
alone. Imagine a developer trying to understand all of them!
It's almost impossible, for a user there is no way they would
even bother trying to. A README-file becomes more and more
important, the more information we provide for the end-user
and developer about any given plugin, the more likely it
is they will start to use GStreamer itself. No one likes
undocumented features(okey, M$ does).

Noone likes to write documentation, but it is always nice to
read it. Some informal information would probably do for now,
but in the end something looking like a man-page should
probably be favorable.

comments?

/Thomas <thomas at codefactory.se>

-- 
Thomas Nyberg                    thomas.nyberg at codefactory.se
CodeFactory AB                   http://www.codefactory.se/
Office: +46 (0)90 71 86 10       Cell: +46 (0)70 335 61 64