[gst-devel] The 1.0 plan

[Thomas Vander Stichele]

Hi,

> One of the big missing items on this list is improving the documentation. We've
> been thinking again about making a book for 1.0. It always boils down to the
> fact that most core developers would gladly write a chapter or two here and
> there but the missing part, it seems, is someone who would take charge of
> organizing and proofreading all this. If anyone feels like taking the lead
> here, we would be very very happy hackers.

I've been particularly thinking about this and asking around for
opinions.

I very much liked the way the Couchdb people set up their book website
and ended up publishing it: http://guide.couchdb.org/

a) they developed the book in a code repository
b) they use it to tag physical releases of the book, and manage
translations
c) they had a site set up all the way through with some simple
javascript so anyone could leave a comment on any specific paragraph and
it was posted as a mail to a list dedicated to the book
d) everything to make the book is freely available

They wrote the book in a subset of HTML5 instead of docbook, and are
able to convert it to docbook.


I don't want to overly focus on the toolchain to make a book, but I
think c) was killer - they got lots of feedback as they wrote the book
(even from me), which both helped them improve content as well as
motivate the writers directly.

One practical idea for the book I thought would be good is to have
enough simple code samples on how to do things in C, and pick a
higher-level language (Python) and "translate" all C examples in the
equivalent Python code.  Just as in our current manual, it would be
important to make sure these examples compile/validate and/or run.

I'm willing to take the lead on this if we find some people that are
willing to write specific chapters.  It'd be useful to have someone help
us out with concrete info who's already written a book (Jono, you still
lurking here?) We should probably start with a rough chapter outline for
it and see who'd be up for writing some chapters.  I myself was thinking
about doing one on synchronization for example as I'm going to make an
internal presentation about it at Flumotion at some point.

Who else is interested in writing part of a GStreamer book?

Thomas

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