On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 3:09 AM, Thilo Goetz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Let's look at this from the user's perspective. Who of our users > needs access to all the old documentation? If there is a significant > number of people who would benefit from this, then I'm for it. Else, > let's not put up information that nobody needs. >
Well, what is the usefulness of having all the documentation online anyway, even for the current version? People who just want to learn a little about UIMA without downloading it don't need our entire documentation. Those who are working with UIMA closely enough to need, say, the reference guides, won't have a problem looking it up in the download package. I can think of a couple reasons why online documentation is useful: 1) If someone asks a question on the mailing list, it is convenient to paste a link to the online HTML version of the docs that answers it. Before we had this it was always a pain to refer to sections of the manual because the section numbers may change from the current manual vs. the one the user has downloaded. 2) For the javadocs, you can link to them from other javadocs (for something that has embedded UIMA). When you are providing links to the docs, it can be useful to have previous versions around so that the links don't break. For #1, if a user has identified what UIMA version they use when they ask the question, you can provide a link to that version of the docs. This is only marginally useful, I have to admit, because the chances are low that (a) a user bothered to actually tell you what UIMA version they have :) and (b) the particular section in question happened to have a relevant change. For #2 I think it is actually more important, since individual APIs certainly do change, and the linked javadocs will no longer represent what's really going on in the version that is embedded in the user's application. -Adam
