[sword-devel] OT: project issues (was: Re: single-user vs. multi-user installations, modules and packaging)

[DM Smith]

My 2 cents on the state of documentation:

I find that documentation is the first thing that developers want  
access to and the last thing they want to write. It seems that there  
is always one more important thing to fix or add. And once a  
developer has an understanding how to use the code, having good  
documentation is relatively unimportant. Currently, we have  
significant implementations for each major platform (Win, Mac, Linux  
and Web) and it is understanding these GUIs that becomes more important.

Having excellent documentation for the Sword API would minimize,  
perhaps circumvent, the common question that we are asked: "I want to  
write my own Bible application, using my favorite computer language.  
How do I export the content of the modules so I can store it in my  
own format?"

Open source is a community process. It should be that anyone can  
freely participate in the process. With regard to documentation, we  
all have the ability to provide it and make it available via the  
wiki. That's what the wiki's home page states it is for.

Serving together in Him,
	DM

On Sep 23, 2007, at 9:55 AM, Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:

> On Sun, 23 Sep 2007, Karl Kleinpaste wrote:
>
>> Eeli Kaikkonen <eekaikko at mail.student.oulu.fi> writes:
>>> I don't think it's realistic to suppose that this project had strict
>>> processes, organization, world class documentation writers, QA etc.
>>
>> I didn't disagree as to today's state;
>> I asked why "Sword *doesn't have to be* as professional."
>
> I tried to answer that question. Sorry my bad English. It doesn't have
> to be as professional as Qt or Java because it would be unrealistic  
> with
> these resources. Let's put it this way: KDE has world class developers
> and yet its documentation is inferior to Qt's. We could be as good as
> any noncommercial Open Source project. To reach that state we would  
> need
> better processes, organization, QA etc. And more developers.
>
> Crosswire does not take any money, it can not hire staff. There are no
> fulltime developers.  Every project here could use more developers.
> There just aren't enough. Therefore, unless a miracle happens, we  
> cannot
> be at the level of the more popular projects within some years.
>
> There have been talk about renewing the web pages etc. Nothing has
> happened. We can and we should do better. By saying "doesn't have  
> to be
> as professional" means that we don't have to be at the level of the
> commercial companies who produce some of the best software products in
> the world. Yet we could and should reorganize our actions and goals
> better. I told what I see to be important for a software library:
> documentation.
>
>
>   Yours,
> 	Eeli Kaikkonen (Mr.), Oulu, Finland
> 	e-mail: eekaikko at mailx.studentx.oulux.fix (with no x)
>
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