Wayland design and source code documentation

[Bryce Harrington]

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 06:13:03PM +0300, Artsiom Anikeyenka wrote:
> That's absolutely right and I realize that very well. But you need to think
> of total newcomers (as I am). I like graphics and I decided to look around
> how that stuff works nowadays under the hood. To have a big picture, before
> I start implementing something on top of that. I don't know X11 and I don't
> want to know it (it's being replaced why learn it). And what wayland
> documentation provides is how wayland is going to replace X comparing both.
> This is good for olders but how am I (and other newcomers) supposed to get
> involved if I (they) want.
> 
> That's why I asked.
>
> Wayland is just another layer between subsystems. How does it communicate
> with them? A simple picture showing wayland as a node of the graph of
> subsystems (or just singly-linked list maybe) would be really-really
> helpful because it would give a lot of info on what it is and why it's
> there. With that in mind understanding the code would also be easier.
> 
> http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/IntroductoryCourse/ - this is a good
> example of getting people involved.
> 
> Now I'm ready for starting to dig the code but it costed a lot of time.

Then perhaps one of the best things you could do, would be to write some
docs.  You're still fresh at coming up to speed so probably know a lot
better than the core devs what key questions other new developers would
have, and probably have some opinions on how the docs should be
composed.  Even if you're not 100% sure of all the technical details,
just leave FIXMEs in the areas that need more detail, and others can
fill in behind you.

Bryce

> On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 8:36 PM, Jasper St. Pierre <jstpierre at mecheye.net>wrote:
> 
> > Wayland has a lot of components: the code generator, the protocol, the
> > client/server lib implementation, the design decisions we made to tie it
> > all together. Yes, we aren't the greatest at documentation and we know that
> > a lot is missing, but in general we assume experience with traditional
> > toolkits, compositors/WMs, and in some cases, leftover knowledge from X11.
> >
> > There's also Weston, the de facto, most feature-complete, reference
> > compositor. That has input management, output management, rendering,
> > protocol implementations, clients, etc.
> >
> > In order for us to help you through the codebase and improve
> > documentation, we sort of need to know what pieces you're interested in,
> > and what you're having trouble understanding.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 3:57 AM, Artsiom Anikeyenka <arty.anikey at gmail.com
> > > wrote:
> >
> >> Hmmm, thanks, but I've seen those. I though maybe there is something
> >> more. Ok I guess the good question will be:
> >>
> >> Do most of developers find it detailed and descriptive enough?
> >>
> >> I mean I'm still learning so maybe I just don't know enough to understand.
> >>
> >> Thanks, and have a very good day :)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 2:02 AM, Bryce W. Harrington <
> >> b.harrington at samsung.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 11:32:09PM +0300, Artsiom Anikeyenka wrote:
> >>> > Hi guys,
> >>> >
> >>> > Is there a detailed documentation of wayland source code. Any good
> >>> > visualization of the design? Are there any plans on adding/creating
> >>> those?
> >>> >
> >>> > Thanks and be good.
> >>>
> >>> http://wayland.freedesktop.org/architecture.html
> >>>
> >>> http://wayland.freedesktop.org/docs/html/
> >>>
> >>> The former includes a couple block diagrams.
> >>>
> >>> The latter includes the client and server API's and the protocol
> >>> specification, which are generated from the wayland codebases.
> >>>
> >>> Bryce
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> wayland-devel mailing list
> >> wayland-devel at lists.freedesktop.org
> >> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/wayland-devel
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> >   Jasper
> >