This is a list of the short term goals for the Perl 5 Documentation Team, the tasks needed to make the goal a reality, and the deadlines for those tasks.
Overall hard deadline: 1st quarter 2011 Administrative Tasks: -------------------- * Define the activities of the Perl 5 Doc Team (deadline 2010-07-10) Discuss in the "Proposed activities of the Perl 5 Doc Team" thread in [the mailing list][1]. * Define a policy for documenting documentation changes in the Perl deltas (e.g. perl5133delta) (deadline 2010-07-10) Discuss in the "Proposed documenting of documentation changes" thread in the mailing list. * Create a FAQ (deadline 2010-07-10) Suggest questions and answers to the "Proposed FAQ" thread in the mailing list. * Create a CPAN module and Perl 5 wiki entry listing members (ongoing, Module and wiki entry will be created by 2010-12-10) People who wish to be listed as members should reply to the "I want to sign up" thread in the mailing list with the task(s) they wish to undertake. * Create a logo and/or mascot for the Doc Team (deadline 2010-07-31) People with (or without) artistic talent are encouraged to submit logo and mascot ideas to the "Proposed logo and/or mascot" thread in the mailing list (WARNING: if we get no submissions then I will choose some incredibly boring Creative Commons licensed image that I think fits). * Set tentative dates for some of the long term goals (deadline 2010-08-31) More on this later. Documentation tasks: ------------------- * Define guidelines for writing official documentation (deadline 2010-08-31) We need to - Examine the structure of the existing documentation - Identify the individual types of documentation (tutorial, manual, quick reference, glossary, etc.) - Suggest guidelines for writing new documentation in the "Proposed documentation guidelines" thread in the mailing list. * Create perlfuncref (deadline 2010-10-31) We need to - Determine the best way to generate `perlfunc` and `perlfuncref` from a single source - Add single line descriptions of the functions * Replace `perlop` with `perlopquick` (deadline 2010-12-31) We need to - Add any missing operators (I think <> is missing) - Review entries for correctness - Review entries for clarity - Correct any style issues based on guidelines created by the Doc team - Add use statements to every example to indicated the minimum level of Perl to run the example - Make it easy to do automated testing on examples - Add sections linked from perlop to the document as appendices and change the links to internal ones - Use the same technique from `perlfunc`/`perlfuncref` to generate `perlop` and `perlopref` * Modify `perldoc` to display individual operators (deadline 2010-12-31) We need to either add a new switch like `-O "||="` or possibly rethink how function, variable, and operator lookups work (e.g. maybe `-h` could take a string as an argument and we would determine the right file to find the answer in) [1]: http://lists.perl.org/list/perl-documentation.html -- Chas. Owens wonkden.net The most important skill a programmer can have is the ability to read.