Hi Bill,
Am 22.03.2013 um 15:19 schrieb Bill Meahan
On 03/22/2013 03:31 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
Hi All,
Maybe, we could setup a collaborative work group to do the documentation.
That is a group of us are responsible for certain groups of commands. This way the manuals can become more complete. That way some of the more advance stuff that is hardly documented finally gets documented.
What we would need is a specification for: [snip] In 45+ years of programming[1] it has never ceased to amaze me how the wheel has to be reinvented for every new system whether language, macro package or whatever. Why do it again? Why not adopt some documentation system that is already widely-used and for which infrastructure and knowledge of use is already in place?
I agree with your statement fully. Specification is a loaded word, too! What I was trying to say that we need convention how things are to be laid out! Setting up, maybe, a module to facilitate a common look. Otherwise the manuals will be a mess of styles and clarity.
I have no investment in any particular system. I'm happily generating other types of non-computer-related documents using reStructuredText since I can easily convert that various publication formats as required without separate source files for each format. It seems to me docutils has everything that would be needed to document ConTeXt and is very widely used given the popularity of Python (which makes me cringe). If doxygen or something else would work better, so be it. The point is, **use something that exists instead of expending time and effort reinventing the wheel yet again!** I was thinking of using ConTeXt!
[1] I was, am and will be a "programmer" and not a "software developer" or "software engineer." The term adequately depicts what I did/do while the others are simply too pretentious. Find the old article "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" in an archive somewhere -- I've been a "real programmer" and I suspect Hans is, too. :)
Sorry for the rants but it is so frustrating to have to install so many different language support and documentation systems simply because I use FOSS tools exclusively. No Problem.
regards Keith.