Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: OpenACS Documentation

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39: Re: OpenACS Documentation (response to 1)
Posted by Alfred Essa on
Let me try to summarize this thread from my own jaundiced and extremely biased view.

1. OpenACS documentation sucks and needs to get better fast. This is not a reflection in the least bit on the community. Those who have maintained it (e.g. Joel, Vinod) have done a superb job. Developers want to program and innovate and that's been the focus of most of the developers. And I don't blame them.

2. We need more contributors to documentation. This should be a no brainer. If we want people to contribute, we need to make the entry barrier approach 0. This is why Wikis are great and they have proven their worth. Docbook reminds me of the system that I used to write my thesis on the mainframe. Yes, I am that old. So fugged about it. Let's go with Wikis.

3. If you follow me thus far, then the question is which Wiki to use. Here I am ambivalent. My immediate gratification instinct says go with a tool other than OpenACS. But long term view says that if OpenACS is a "community system" then there are two tools it must have: wikis and blogs. Neither one has to be great, but it should be good enough. I lean, therefore, to using the OpenACS wiki with the proviso that it will get some attention from all the stud programmers (men and women).

Anyway, it would good to make a decision on this soon.