On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Martin Blais <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 11:44 AM, Simon Michael <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> We have a lot of docs, in various states of freshness, specific to each >> implementation. Also many informative blog and mail list posts. Much of >> this is hard to find. > > > Is it? > > >> Reading Stefano's recent ledger list post, I think, not for the first >> time, wouldn't it be great if we had all of this linked somewhere >> central, curated, and presented beautifully, providing an easy on-ramp >> and reference for newcomers and experts ? Actively maintained by the >> community ? > > > I keep all relevant docs linked from a single place: > http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/index > Everything Beancount can be found there. > > I think a few choice threads should be linked from somewhere too eventually.
I'm not a huge fan of Google Docs, but I *do* quite like your index and then having more topic-specific pages. Ledger's docs have the TOC, but I've found navigating that monolith page somewhat unappealing. I'm not really sure why as I can still search the page... just something about being somewhere in the sea of all that text just isn't my favorite. I rather like Org-mode's documentation: - http://orgmode.org/manual/ It's got a TOC, and sections are further broken down. This also makes it easy to link someone to a bite-sized page for help, e.g.: - http://orgmode.org/manual/Motion.html#Motion Then there's the user-contributed wiki, Worg: - http://orgmode.org/worg/ There are more "official" pages on using various features, as well as user-updated link stores for things like "outside" tutorials: - http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/index.html Anyone can contribute, and even in my ~1 week on this mailing list I've already seen that there are clearly different ideas of how to accomplish various tasks. For example, probably 5 folks suggested ways to handle inter-account transfers (like checking <-> credit card). These could be put in a user-contributed wiki so that the information isn't purely stored in a mailing list. The relationship seems to be that the manual has more syntax/setup information, while the wiki is more for tutorials and practical usage. If ledger were re-written as so, I think the "prose-y" stuff about double entry accounting might live in the wiki, while things like `ledger -f file.dat [options]` type stuff would be in the manual. Or valid file/transaction syntax, internals, augmenting with scripts, etc. Just some ideas from experience with another open source project! John > > >> If so, where would that somewhere be ? ledger-cli.org and/or its wiki is >> the closest existing candidate, but it has never felt right to load that >> up with non-Ledger stuff. I think it's valuable for each implementation >> to have its own distinct site. I think a separate, well-named, highly >> findable site, even a single page collecting all useful links and acting >> as a portal to the ledgerverse, could be a win. >> >> If you agree, what would you call it ? Martin, since you are retiring >> your LedgerHub tool, would that name be available ? > > > It will be "available," - this just means I'll put a big fat notice on its > homepage that it has been swallowed by Beancount - but I wouldn't recommend > reusing it, that will just create more confusion, it's a bad idea IMHO. > > >> Related to naming.. what do we call this whole topic, anyway ? Stefano >> used the phrase "command-line accounting". But we have curses and web >> GUIs too. "Plain-text accounting" ? Pretty soon we'll probably support >> some non-text storage format. "Ledger clones" ? Too narrow. Aside: in >> conversation, I use "ledger-likes" for things similar to but not >> necessarily compatible with Ledger (ledger, hledger beancount, abandon, >> penny) and "*ledger" for very compatible ledger-likes (ledger, hledger). > > > Command-line accounting is the most evocative IMO. > > > >> Any thoughts ? >> >> -Simon >> >> On 2/4/16 9:41 AM, Simon Michael wrote: >> > I think we could pick out a few common tasks to focus our >> > tool-building/documenting efforts on. Eg: >> > >> > 1. importing bank data and CSV generally. All of the tools and basic >> > generic workflows for this should be described on one page. Focus on >> > CSV, but we should mention OFX too (ledger-autosync is arguably best at >> > this with its download feature). >> > >> > 2. exporting all data and reports as CSV >> > >> > 3. moving data between the ledger-likes (ledger, hledger, beancount...). >> > Again, all tools and techniques gathered on one page. All existing >> > formats should be listed. The output of "ledger print" is a sort of >> > lowest common denominator, I propose we give it a name and decree that >> > every tool should import this as a basic interchange format. And/or a >> > standardised CSV representation of it, such as "hledger print -O csv" >> > >> > 4. moving data from and to other accounting tools (gnucash, moneydance, >> > excel, quick{en,books}, mobile account apps) >> > >> > 5. manual data entry. Editors and their modes, ledger entry, hledger add >> > and other prompting tools, hledger-web, recurring entry scripts, etc. >> > >> > 6. a catalog of journal entries covering all common transactions >> > >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Beancount" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/d0a1826e-2468-ff82-2984-9cc3afdbab1e%40joyful.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "Ledger" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/ledger-cli/u648SA1o-Ek/unsubscribe. > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. 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