Hello James, > My name is James Traub and I would like to volunteer as a documentation > reviewer, editor, and writer. I currently live in Seattle, Washington and > work for GE Healthcare in a software technical support role. I was a > full-time SQL Server database administrator for about 4 years. I am very > proficient in the administration and support of Microsoft technologies. I > have also written and edited user manuals, release notes, quick start guides, > and compatibility lists. > Please let me know if I can be of assistance. Thank you.
First, welcome aboard! :-) In our private emails, you stated that you would be happy helping out with the proofreading of the Language Reference. If that is still the case, I suggest that you first pick up the latest beta here: http://www.firebirdsql.org/file/documentation/reference_manuals/fblangref25-en/Firebird_Language_Reference_25EN.pdf (a multi-page HTML version is available at http://www.firebirdsql.org/file/documentation/reference_manuals/fblangref25-en/html/fblangref25.html) The first four chapters have already been proofread. I'm somewhere in the middle of chapter 5 (DDL). Mark Rotteveel started at the end and has reviewed the Appendices as well as Chapter 10 (Security). That means chapters 6 (DML) through 9 (Transaction Control) are still up for grabs. While reviewing, we try to correct English errors *and* technical errors. The latter may be tricky for you because, unlike us, you don't have many years of experience with Firebird SQL (I assume). The good news is that Firebird adheres pretty strictly to the official SQL standards. However, that alone isn't enough to tell if some statement in a manual is correct or not. One way to tackle this is to look up the relevant sections in the InterBase 6.0 beta LangRef and the Firebird 2.5 LangRef Update. Together, they should describe Firebird 2.5 SQL as it really is. Of course, these two documents also contain errors and omissions. So they may both be wrong where the Firebird LangRef beta is right. In case of discrepancies (or even vague suspicions) I always test everything in practice. But this takes a lot of time, even for an experienced Firebird developer and documenter. So I wonder if we can ask this from you. Maybe it's better if you concentrate on the English for now, and only investigate/report SQL issues if they really stick out. Or perhaps you can first read some sections in, say, chapter 6, to get an idea of the material and discuss the best approach after that? Please know that we're all very glad with the help you're offering and I hope that my rambling doesn't scare you off! ;-) Cheers, Paul Vinkenoog PS: The Docwriting and Docbuilding guides become relevant as soon as you start writing or editing Docbook sources. But for the LangRef proofreading, we just submit our findings in plaintext to Helen Borrie, who supervises the whole process. So while you can surely have a look at those guides, there's no hurry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transform Data into Opportunity. Accelerate data analysis in your applications with Intel Data Analytics Acceleration Library. Click to learn more. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=278785231&iu=/4140 _______________________________________________ Firebird-docs mailing list Firebird-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-docs
