James Cox wrote:
> not meaning to be devil's advocate here, but has anyone taken a look
> recently as to how we do documentation at php.net ? we use the sgml docbook
> format, and generate pages accordingly. We have a notes system, so people
> can annotate / comment on, which get reviewed by the documentators (with
> edit/delete/reject tools) ?
> 
> This could be made accessible if it's usefull...

Neat! As a user of the PHP docs, I love 'em, and I'd hope that system at 
least serves as the interface target as far as an annotation and 
browsing system goes for the revamped moz doc system.

What is the interface for the doc authors? Do they have to work through 
a traditional CVS interface? What if a new contributor wants to submit a 
changed draft of the doc itself? Would they email diffs to the owner? I 
think part of the rationale behind using the Zope CMF (which isn't as 
well-developed a documentation viewer as PHP's docs) is that it offers 
fully web-based workflow and makes it unnecessary out of the box for 
contributors to use CVS, whil still letting hardcore techies use FTP or 
WebDAV to work on documents in a more traditional way. One of the goals 
seems to be to lower the barrier for contributors.

Basically, if it came down to the two it's a choice between a fully 
developed CMS and workflow system that needs customization to make it an 
ideal annotated documentation viewer (Zope CMF) and a fully developed 
annotated doc viewer that needs customization to address the workflow 
goals (PHP.net's doc system).

--
-sk


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