On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 7:55 AM, Edward K. Ream <[email protected]> wrote:
- Hide quoted text - > I am beginning to feel that something basic is missing from Leo. As Your question struck a chord. Deep down, I really think Leo is potentially a "killer app". There is no doubt that with the processes adopted around Leo and its foundation precepts, I write better, more reusable code. And Leo has done a remarkable job of utilizing yet hiding XML - that is a grand accomplishment. There is both a sense of promise and a lingering sense of unfulfilled potential with Leo. The addition of hooks for IPython was the last big advance - and it was a HUGE advance. I do not think you can separate a discussion about an open source tool from a discussion of the community that supports it. At its best, the Leo-editor group is a supportive, responsive community. There was a time that keeping up with the postings on this site was an outstanding way to discover "new" technology. And I have discovered a lot of great technology - both through prior visits, and by following some of Leo's best contributors in other channels. However, I find I spend far less time visiting this group than I had when I first came upon Leo's tools. I know in general that the popularity of developer sites can ebb and flow with time - just look at Google Groups posting stats. I think that return visitors/ contributors are influenced as much by shared values and community as they are by hot technology. There are a number of items on my "want-to-do-someday" list such as marrying Leo with CouchDB. But I have so little time for my want-to- do's that I hate squandering that limited time on troublesome or dead- end efforts. I strive to eek out some time each month for want-to- do's, but when I hit a brick wall on the current chosen list item - it gets shoved to the bottom of the list. It might even be banished to the land of "things that need to be forgotten". Such has been my experience with my last couple of want-to-do's with Leo. I have learned not to rely on Leo's documentation to be representative of Leo's full (and current) functionality. I do not want to re-invent the wheel and so often I feel there must be a way to do what I want to do with the existing software - but it is undocumented! Past suggestions for a "Leo Cookbook" with fully executable examples have consistently been shot down. I am grateful that Leo has been shared with the coding world. I "feel" that Leo ought to be at the core of any tool set for developing in python. But then, several years ago I "felt" that both Perl and MySql needed to be mastered as the foundation tools for software development - at least the lingua franca glue tools. Perl is now dead and MySql is owned by Oracle (they might as well be dead). Python should be around for as long as I am likely to be coding. Leo could be at the center of that - but it seems stalled. I feel it's unrealized potential is reflective of a lack of great documentation and the lack of the friendlier collegial support more commonly experienced today with efforts such as CouchDB, Nodejs, or Javascript. It is not that they are sexier technologies - I would rather write code in Python than in Javascript. But if I am going to invest my time to advance something that is difficult - it is much more rewarding in an environment that is growing its support. My Answer: Really Great Documentation Bernie Pursley Ellington, CT -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor?hl=en.
