On 06/02/2015, Sriram Ramkrishna <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 2:36 AM, Ekaterina Gerasimova > <[email protected]> wrote: >> On 06/02/2015, Sriram Ramkrishna <[email protected]> wrote: >>> You know just having an IDE is not enough, it would be great if we >>> could get someone to write a a book or something on gnome development >>> that we can sell and use the proceeds to fund GNOME. >> >> It would be great, but writing a good book takes a lot of time and >> effort so I would find it surprising if someone was to write one and >> donate the rights to GNOME. If it happens, great, but it doesn't seem >> likely. > > Indeed. Also, it will be out of date a year after publishing given > how fast we are developing new things. > >> Another approach would be to organise something along the lines of a >> book sprint. These basically work a bit like a very targeted, short >> hackfests. The first day is spent planning out the index, splitting it >> into short chapters and letting the attendees pick what they're >> working on. The second day is writing (usually 1-2 chapters per >> person) and the third day is for reviewing. By the fourth day, we had >> a short, published book in our hands. This did inspire a similar >> approach from the documentation team towards some of the devel docs in >> the last year which were written as relatively self-contained guides >> with examples and could be taken for a book quite easily. The key to >> organising something like this is to get the leading developers into >> one room. > > I really like this method. I think it might be worth investing in > that. Mostly because this is probably the best way to have a > sustained, up to date model. We just need to identify the core things > tha won't change. We could use Builder as the basis of that writing > since there is going to be a lot of helper stuff in Builder that will > make writng things like gobject code easier. (according to builder > page) > >> The other issue to consider if that our toolkit and even application >> design change quite quickly so the book would become outdated fast. > > Yeah, and this is quite true... that's why I like your idea, it > becomes part of the development cycle. The only problem doing it from > a 'community' perspective is that we won't be able to write things in > a single 'voice'. Or rather, we will need a good editor that can warp > it into a single voice. It is a little off putting when one chapter > is using a different set of word choices than another because say one > speaker is English and the other is American or Canadian. (a nod to > you making fun of each other's pronunciations of english words. :-)
The documentation team generally uses US spelling with British English grammar as US spelling is more common while British grammar is more explicit, so clearer for non-native speakers… regardless, I feel that the style does come out relatively consistent after a review. For it to become part of the development cycle, you would need a group of people who are dedicated to keeping it up-to-date and can track technical changes in GNOME. >> One way around this is to use an on-demand printing service so that we >> don't have to hold books in stock. > > Makes sense. I like these innovative ideas! > > If we were to do something like that.. what kind of resources would be > required and do we have them and is it on someone's radar? I think you need to get 2-3 people together who are interested in making this happen, then reach out to core developers to see how they feel about the idea. It would be good if you have a clearly defined idea of what the aim of the book would be/what it would cover, but leave the exact content to be decided by those who write it so that they feel some ownership over it. There is a lot of useful information already at https://wiki.gnome.org/HowDoI which can be reused. _______________________________________________ engagement-list mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/engagement-list
