On 27/01/2007, at 5:48 AM, Anselm Hook wrote:
At a slight right-angles to the above; I suspect IRC is the secret
engine of the net... ongoing persistent conversation is where a group
begins to improve its awareness of itself and its aspirations...
I was pleased to see that Landon Blake continued the thread, as this
is a group where the old arguments wouldn't be re-hashed. We're all
striving for new approaches to old problems.
I agree with you that the key to the software documentation problem
is in IRC and ongoing persistent conversation. When I'm writing
documentation, my problem isn't in what to write... but in trying to
imagine a fictional person and what they'd want to read. In those
constipated moments, I'd love to have someone sitting there asking me
any questions, to which I'd happily type the answers.
When I look at a source code tree, for example:
parser/state.c
parser/statecomment.c
parser/statecomment.h
parser/statecomment_test.c
parser/statequote.c
parser/statequote.h
I can see that these could be IRC channels, with people sitting in
the bits of code that they know. They would know how their code
connects to other bits of code, so someone going over the source tree
can move from channel to channel.
If the channels were logged into raw captures, then quick searches
could handle much of the routine. At a layer above raw chat, the
chunky nuggets of wisdom can be pulled out for a more nutritious
meal. The next layer above that could be the documentation in reader-
friendly format.
Eg; from the top-down:
Project documentation (PDF?)
Module documentation (multiple - DocBook?).
Module notes (more current, less readable - wiki format?).
File notes (IRC + wiki?).
Files (IRC + logging?).
Another piece of the puzzle could be integrating bug reporting into
IRC, where someone types in a complaint and that section of text is
marked with a ticket. The ticket can be resolved with further chat,
or automatically percolated upwards into a more formal ticket
tracking system.
Some entertaining ideas come to mind about integrating forums and
chat too, and I'd love to have something like pair programming or
shared editors where people can watch code being edited, with
questions/comments/corrections to one side.
Between the talents this group has, we should be able to whip
together an example mash-up quite quickly to see where this could
take us? Of course we would put in the various geo* improvements (red
dots blinking in America as people type!) to cater for our interests. :)
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
Geowanking mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
