Peter, On 2002.01.22 03:43 Peter Surda wrote: > Hi! > > I hope I'm not gonna be completely offtopic, but I wanted to say that it > isn't
You're not being offtopic. In fact this topic has been quite discussed lately. > necessary to have 10+ years of X experience to contribute useful code to > DRI > project. The "Use the source Luke" is ALMOST sufficient (the docs > available > are not, and often have obsolete information, but I think that doesn't > matter > that much really), and as for the few (although sometimes crucial) pieces > I > didn't understand, there were helpful people on mailing lists and irc > (e.g. > Mike Harris and Michel Dänzer) who provided me with enough information so > that > I could "get it". I wrote my first contribution to X (tvout support for > r128) > in like 3 hours (including time spent on IRC) without ANY prior knowledge > and > any docs from ATI. I haven't had even written a client app for X before. > > This isn't to say the situation couldn't be better, only that it is > sufficient > for the "worthy" ones :-), and has a healthy base. Having free access to > MODIFYING the code is simply unbeatable, I can't imagine living without > it. > How can (or why) you see "worthy" people and "not worthy" people out there? Do you see yourself as part of an [healthy base] elite? Do you want to "filter" also those people that aren't as "worthy" as you are but legitimately want to help? Why do you despise them? Documentation can make a lot of people without deep knowledge giving each a minor contribution, that added up yields to a quite substantial contribution - that you seem to neglect. So for example giving an help in debugging and eventually fixing the bug themselves is not worthy? > I think writing docs should be done by people who get paid for it. I know > I > hate writing docs for the stuff I program for free. Or at least it should > NOT > be done by developers, but by people specialized in documentation. This > isn't > a "developer" issue, but a "development organization" issue. > You're probably talking about USER documentation, not DEVELOPER documentation! If you really wanted that your code to be used by others you wouldn't say that. > My advice to wannabe developers: use the source and when you get confused > or > stuck, ask in the list or on irc. About how to ask, read a recent essay > from > ESR. Decent docs may decrease the time you need to accomplish a task > without > prior knowledge, but not really THAT much. A developer should trust the > availabilty of source and not be scared to dig in. It ain't gonna bite > you :-) Your advice is an excuse to not make documentation (either due to lack of time or to laziness). Not having documentation means: - those "worthy" people you mention loosing more time to get used to the code. - the other ones quitting, leading to less people interested in helping, making the project loose critical mass - the developers answering duplicate questions, over and over, instead of coding - dependency on the original developers (which was quite noted on DRI project itself) I can't imagine how the open source world would be if every open source project had the same discrimination philosophy as you do. Imagine if there was no developer documentation on KDE, GNOME, GTK, etc. You probably wouldn't had any of those small and simple yet useful applications that you use so often in your daily routine because the developer that made it wasn't "worthy" enough for going into all those source code to understand it! > > Bye, > > Peter Surda Even if you don't like of doing it documentation must be seen as long term investment: you can loose some time doing it but it will make you loose less time later and make your work to endure. Regards, Jose Fonseca _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
