On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 4:22 AM, David Nelson <li...@traduction.biz> wrote: > Hello Norbert, > > >> No amount of documentation will turn a 'non-geek' into a core dev. >> Clean, well written code, with the least amount of 'trick' is the best >> documentation: It is by definition accurate, complete and >> authoritative. Quality that no Documentation ever equaled no matter >> how much effort you put into it. > > No, the very best is clean, well-written code accompanied by > good-quality documentation. Sorry, you will not convince me that > design documentation is unnecessary.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm merely giving you my opinion, grounded on having been in the trenches, designing software and writing code for a living for the past for 20 years... Anyway, I am apparently in good company: http://kerneltrap.org/node/5725 "A "spec" is close to useless. I have _never_ seen a spec that was both big enough to be useful _and_ accurate." Linus Torvalds I'd also refer you to : http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileDocumentation.htm#ProjectSuccess > [..] code base is *not* fully > implementing the best principles of an Open Source project. Ask the > FSF for an opinion about this. I've been hacking gnu make recently... please do point me to such documentation (no, not the _user_ documentation, the supposedly indispensable 'design spec' ) so... I don't know about their opinion, but I do know about their practice... > > > No, I am not going to s*d off and reverse engineer the code base > myself. I am asking three of our leading devs whether they would be > willing to collaborate with me on this perfectly-justifiable > initiative. We must have a different definition of 'collaboration' than me. If you you are "not going to s*d off (what-ever that means) and reverse engineer the code base" yourself, it sound that you conception of collaboration is 'do as I said... I'm watching', or as we say in french 'Armons-nous et partez" > >> What do you expect the BoD to do ? issue an Edict ? Give you a >> size-able budget to hire technical writer ? If your proposal attract >> people from the community (our even better attract new people to it) >> then your proposal will become reality, regardless of the BoD opinion. >> That is how it is supposed to work. > > I put my question to three of our leading devs, and I will wait for > them to reply to the original posts. Then this is the wrong list... if you want to ask devs, you should do that on the dev mailing list. > > Sorry, Norbert, but your responses do not change my views in any way. I have no such hope. I merely re-stated to you the reality of a volunteer based effort. If you want something to happen, you need to roll-up your sleeves and _make_ it happen. Trying to extract election promises out of some people, on ground completely unrelated to the office they seek, is not going to get you there. > > Your arguments resound with the sideways logic and suave patter of a > dishonest used car salesman combined with the moral values of a > larcenous banker. :-D > > (Above to be read tongue in cheek with a smile.) You can add all the smiles you want to an insult it is still one. Norbert -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
