Hello everyone,

I just opened a PR here for migrating some of the README.txt files to RST files 
(for board documentation,
https://github.com/apache/nuttx/pull/16328). This is part of the long list of 
old README files that need to be migrated,
all laid out in issue #11077 (https://github.com/apache/nuttx/issues/11077). If 
you could help review the PR (it's quite
long and it only tackles 6 of the READMEs), that would be great. I plan to 
continue migrating the remainder of these
READMEs over the next few weeks.

In case you haven't seen it, I've also added a tagging system to the Nuttx 
documentation in this PR #16275
(https://github.com/apache/nuttx/pull/16275) and I've started adding tags for 
chips in PR #16321
(https://github.com/apache/nuttx/pull/16321). This is part of an effort to make 
the NuttX docs easier to search through
(i.e. filter for supported boards that have some feature like `ethernet` and 
also some chip `rp2040`, etc.).

This is also part of the wider issue 
(https://github.com/apache/nuttx/issues/16278) to improve NuttX's quality and
reliability, specifically step #3.

I have been working with an undergraduate engineering design team for the past 
year on using NuttX for high powered
rocketry. Most of the struggle I have seen students (myself included) encounter 
are difficulties finding information
about what NuttX supports or how to use some of the features, programs or 
extend existing code to purpose-built
applications. I really think NuttX could increase its user base (and maintainer 
base) if some of this information was
better documented and easier to find. To me, this is a bigger priority than 
adding new features or even (in some cases)
improving the stability of a few boards. If the documentation is clear on what 
exactly is supported by NuttX, it would
cause fewer headaches to people who select a board from the docs and find out 
that the feature they expected does not
work. As long as it's marked as unstable, we're being honest with the user base 
and can work towards fixing it later.

If I may, I have a suggestion that I think might help to improve the quality of 
the documentation without requiring
specifically assigned tasks:

I've noticed that many of the maintainers on this mailing list have a set of 
boards that are supported by NuttX, which
as a whole covers a very large subset of the maintained NuttX boards. I 
personally have mostly RP2040 based boards, but
quite a few people I've noticed have STM32 boards. At this point, I would 
assume that most of these board owners are
very familiar with the process of tinkering with and uploading NuttX to them (I 
know I've gotten *very* familiar with
having to push BOOTSEL every time :) ).

If everyone could take a little time to look at the documentation page for the 
boards that they own, I think it would be
very easy to identify improvements or missing information quickly. Then we 
could all open a corresponding PR to make the
updates. Since everyone has different boards, I think this would spread the 
task fairly evenly, and the boards that are
most common among all of us will get the most updates (probably a good thing, 
they would maybe be the most common
amongst users too).

This goes for not just boards, but even examples you use often (I used the 
`gpio` example recently and noticed that its
documentation page is completely empty 
[https://nuttx.apache.org/docs/latest/applications/examples/gpio/index.html]).
Same goes for drivers that are used often. There wasn't very much documentation 
about the uORB framework until a few
months ago when it started gaining some heavy use, and now that's a tool I 
refer back to quite often.

In summary, if there's something you use often and have become an expert at, 
write down some of your expertise with it
in the docs wherever it's missing and add a few of the relevant new 'tags'. I 
think if we did that, the docs would
improve massively in a relatively short period of time.

If there's interest, I could also compile a list of empty documentation pages 
(such as for the GPIO example) and make a
checklist issue similar to #11077 just for tracking. Might be an easy task for 
new contributors to tackle as well.

-- 
Matteo Golin

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