Wiki like documentation Was: Re: Wrapping up 7.4 (finally)

Thu Jun 12 12:10:14 PDT 2008

I am also struggling with trying to understand the current functionality.
The problem with searching the web (and this is what i am doing now) is that
there is lots of information and some of the documents are obsolete because
they are old. I am slowly getting there by searching through the code and
several things can improve this situation.
 would be able to contribute once i get an understanding of the architecture
better. Also, is there a document that describes what changes are coming
forth in the new release ? A document describing the motivation and the
implementation details would be helpful. And there should be a easy way to
find out what features/code is getting obsoleted.

Anyways, thanks for all the responses so far. I am making progress.

Just my 2 cents
mohan

On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 3:42 AM, Jordi Polo <mumismo at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> We are mixing at least 3 threads on the Wrapping up 7.4 thread. I fear that
> the Wiki discussion will be lost so I start this thread.
>
> I'd also tried to understand current X as I was interested in the new MPX
> functionality.  I found that currently the documentation is scarce, bad
> and/or outdated. I think most of us will agree on that.
> Also most of us will agree on not being rocket science, X is not by any
> means a trivial piece of software.
> I personally also think that it may not have the best performance in this
> world but X gets the work done so not much need arises to collaborate or fix
> anything.
>
> I think that most of the people and I mean developers out there have not a
> clear idea about X architecture (no further than it uses a protocol and can
> be used over the net with local input devices). What are the *proto
> thingies? what's each  X* library? How mesa gallium3d dri X mix together? I
> don't think the average KDE (for instance) developer can make a better
> diagram of how X works than how the Linux kernel works.
>
> So I think that we need documentation and tutorials _really badly_  if new
> developers are to be found.
>
> And for maximum visibility, the wiki is the best place.
> First, about the wiki engine, Daniel asked for a Moin replacement. What
> about Trac? (http://trac.edgewall.org/ ) it is basically the same syntax
> than Moin moin, it integrates a bug tracking system (what I don't know if it
> is a good idea)  and a lot of plugins (http://trac-hacks.org/). It is moin
> moin so horrible to be replaced? Then is not mediawiki the most beatiful
> wiki engine out there?
>
> Second, about the wiki contents. I think we can establish a wiki team,
> Reece Dunn seemed interested and I am also interested in helping here.
> The wiki team will unify the wikis and with the help of the mailing list
> decide the general structure of the documentation on the wiki.
> They (or we) will work on filling the contents and keep a thumb on the
> developers' ribs when the need for more specific information is needed.
>
>
> Also and as a side note, I would say that a good way to attract developers
> is breaking things. How difficult would it be to include beta versions on
> the current release process? There are developers that will not try nightly
> builds but will try beta versions if it works reasonablely even if it breaks
> on a lot of common cases and those developers are the same that start with
> some patches to make it work, continue with some more patches to make it
> work better ...
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 5:14 PM, Daniel Stone <daniel at fooishbar.org>
> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:49:57AM +0300, Timo Jyrinki wrote:
>> > 2008/6/12 Jeremy Huddleston <jeremyhu at freedesktop.org>:
>> > > Good, centralized developer documentation is greatly appreciated.
>> >
>> > Speaking of which, if you have any ideas how to better interlink and
>> combine:
>> > - http://dri.freedesktop.org/
>> > - http://xorg.freedesktop.org/
>> > - http://mesa3d.org/
>> >
>> > ...please don't hesitate updating the wikis. Both DRI and X.Org wikis
>> > would benefit if someone would have time to rethink the front page
>> > organization by grouping links under different titles and learning
>> > moinmoin tables / colouring to bring some more clarity there. Both
>> > wikis currently look like the typical wikis, ie. just braindump of
>> > links with no thinking about the structure. And yes, I can do
>> > something about those myself one day, but anyway there's lots of stuff
>> > around to make more beautiful and therefore more accessible.
>>
>> I don't understand why DRI and Mesa have separate lists and websites,
>> tbh, especially given the level of crosstalk.  For the wikis, it should
>> be possible to link between them, and I'll try to sort out how to make
>> that happen.
>>
>> If someone has further wiki improvement suggestions on the admin side
>> that don't involve MediaWiki (and have a migration path from Moin at
>> least as clear as the migration from one Moin release to the next; the
>> bar here isn't quite as high as you'd think, though), please let me
>> know.
>>
>> I did start trying to reorganise the xorg wiki at some point, but
>> unfortunately only got a small part of the way through before existential
>> despair set in.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Daniel
>>
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>
>
> --
> Jordi Polo Carres
> NLP laboratory - NAIST
> http://www.bahasara.org
>
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