I agree there is always a need for more and better documentation and I
certainly agree that FlightGear is under documented. However; it is not
like we have a complete absence of documentation.
There is a ton of information on the wiki. There is a ton of information
included in the documentation directory of the source code. There is an
entire doxygen tree you can generate for simgear that has been pretty
carefully constructed. We have a mailing list, forum, and irc where people
can ask questions about things where they haven't found adequate
documentation. Most developers are pretty open about their identity so it's
often possible to contact someone directly if you have a specific question
about their work.
There are some additional documentation challenges not mentioned yet.
Everyone approaches the FlightGear project from a different background,
different direction, different amounts of capabilities, different amounts of
experience, and different goals for what they want to get out of their
experience. It is pretty overwhelming to think about creating a body of
documentation that would adequately address the information needs of
everyone at all times ... not to mention FlightGear is a pretty rapidly
moving target.
One response to all of this that we see frequently and is greatly
appreciated (!!!) is when someone comes to our project, recognizes a need or
lack of something (like documentation) and decides they are going to roll up
their sleeves and do something about it.
FlightGear is never going to have top down authoritarian leadership like a
large corporation might have. This is good in many ways, but is also
creates challenges in many ways. I often see my roll more as a facilitator
for the efforts of developers who are working on their own priorities
rather than a corporate style manager that rules with an iron fist and
dictates exactly what each developer is going to work on at any given time.
One of the the core reasons that FlightGear is successful is because
developers can come here and outlet their creative energy in a relaxed
environment ... getting away from their stressful day job where they are
told what to do and how soon it needs to be done.
Best regards,
Curt.
On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 12:37 PM, Hal V. Engel <hven...@gmail.com> wrote:
> **
>
> On Wednesday, July 27, 2011 04:04:09 AM Slavutinsky Victor wrote:
>
>
> >
>
> > Moreover, that explanations not provided not for me only but for anyone.
>
> > It's open source but way it open it can not be developed by ones for
>
> > whom it seems to be open. That's the real problem what I can not solve,
>
> > and, I suppose, no one outside of FG community can.
>
> >
>
>
> The lack of internal documentation is an issue for many of not most open
> source projects. One reason for this is that it is a big undertaking to
> completely document a system of the complexity of FG.
>
>
> For example I just "finished" (meaning that it is good enough - not that it
> is perfect) documenting a Class for another project. This was a relatively
> simple class with about 22 methods. I spent the better part of a week's full
> time effort to document it and I wrote the code so I knew what it did before
> I started working on the documentation. I have not looked at the FG
> internals but I would guess that it has hundreds of Classes and many of
> these are likely more complex than the one I just documented. So writing
> detailed internal documentation for FG would probably keep some one occupied
> full time for the better part of a year.
>
>
> In the long run having this documentation would help the project but it is
> a huge undertaking. In addition, it is an undertaking that has little if any
> short term impact on the project which makes it even less attractive for
> potential contributers.
>
>
> Hal
>
>
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--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org - http://gallinazo.flightgear.org
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