Re: documentation

From: Malcolm Edgar (malcolm.edga..mail.com)
Date: Mon Jun 29 2009 - 04:47:57 EDT

  • Next message: Adrian A.: "Re: Poleposition for Cayenne?"

    Also having bundled documentation is very useful when you are working
    on sites where there in no internet connectivity, for example defense
    sites.

    regards Malcolm Edgar

    On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Andrus Adamchik<andru..bjectstyle.org> wrote:
    > Just stumbled on a reason to keep the docs together with the corresponding
    > release.
    >
    > I am using pretty old Tapestry 4.0 (cause Tapestry doesn't have a simple
    > upgrade path, but that's beyond the point).  Tapestry comes with no bundled
    > docs, so the only way was to get them is via the web site:
    >
    > http://tapestry.apache.org/
    >
    > Today I noticed that they delisted 4.0. Turns out the docs are still there
    > (if you know the URL : http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry4/), good for
    > me...  But this brings up an issue with keeping the old documentation on the
    > web site forever, which is bad for many reasons (such as Google
    > cross-version confusion).
    >
    > Having bundled docs frees us to modify the site any way we want. So I am
    > changing my vote here to -1.
    >
    > Andrus
    >
    >
    >
    > On May 26, 2009, at 10:52 AM, Andrus Adamchik wrote:
    >
    >> I am +0 on that.
    >>
    >> As long as we maintain separate doc branches on the site for the *major*
    >> releases, changes in the docs between the minor versions can be reasonably
    >> reflected in a single set of docs. Essentially, only the alpha release users
    >> will be affected, and they already have to deal with lagging docs anyways.
    >>
    >> Andrus
    >>
    >>
    >> On May 26, 2009, at 3:11 AM, Aristedes Maniatis wrote:
    >>>
    >>> The Cayenne project has long had bundled documentation within the release
    >>> itself. A maven script pulls the docs from Confluence and bundles them up.
    >>> I've long had a script which 95% works to do this from the final website
    >>> docs (so they look prettier), but I've never finished that last 5% which is
    >>> a bit fiddly and ties into bits of maven I don't understand.
    >>>
    >>> Given that there are likely to be changes to the way our website is built
    >>> which will invalidate the existing maven script and mine, I'd like to ask
    >>> whether we could save ourselves a whole lot of work and not bundle any docs
    >>> at all with the distribution.
    >>>
    >>> Advantages of removing docs from distribution
    >>> * smaller distribution
    >>> * less work to rework scripts and for the ongoing task of committing docs
    >>> to svn
    >>> * documentation is not frozen in time and fixed for errors or improved
    >>> clarity (for example users of 3.0M5 aren't seeing the new cache docs Andrus
    >>> wrote)
    >>> * nicer to look at
    >>> * ties in better with external resources (Jira, links to other sites,
    >>> etc)
    >>>
    >>> Advantages of keeping in distribution
    >>> * snapshot of documentation frozen in time as at that particular release
    >>> (which is a problem if we rewrite docs for new features and don't keep
    >>> historic doc pages)
    >>> * problem for people at 30,000 feet wanting to read docs (that and
    >>> somewhere in the Sahara desert where there is no internet access)
    >>>
    >>>
    >>> Many projects don't bundle all the docs with the download. Could we
    >>> create a set of a dozen introductory pages which point you to the
    >>> javadocs/website/etc?
    >>>
    >>> I'm +1 on the idea of removing them before 3.0 final.
    >>>
    >>>
    >>> Ari Maniatis
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>> -------------------------->
    >>> ish
    >>> http://www.ish.com.au
    >>> Level 1, 30 Wilson Street Newtown 2042 Australia
    >>> phone +61 2 9550 5001   fax +61 2 9550 4001
    >>> GPG fingerprint CBFB 84B4 738D 4E87 5E5C  5EFA EF6A 7D2E 3E49 102A
    >>>
    >>>
    >>>
    >>
    >>
    >
    >



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