Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] some thoughts about Linux audio software documentation
From: John Check (j4strngs_AT_bitless.net)
Date: Sat Aug 14 2004 - 04:42:01 EEST
On Friday 13 August 2004 06:19 pm, robin fell wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-08-13 at 22:39, John Check wrote:
> > On Thursday 12 August 2004 05:50 pm, Rick B wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > > .... it is the
> > > fact that most of the developers are coders as well as musicians, and
> > > thus have their proverbial plate full with two very time consuming
> > > pursuits, and have no time left to keep the documentation up to date.
> >
> > And that's precisely why we have to consider developers for whom coding
> > isn't a primary skill. If we can make things more attractive for people
> > who can build and test things without side tracking them, we would have a
> > bigger pool of documentation maintainers.
>
> I'm not sure it's possible to attract testing effort _without_
> sidetracking those people - it's somewhat of a necessity given the
> (often alpha) nature of the development. You need a certain sort of
> person to deal with frustration and testing - preferably one who has an
> axe to grind :)
Hehe, funny you should say that because I have plenty of dull axes.
My point is people shouldn't be sidetracked unnecessarily because of poor
process and lack of communication. My little anecdote about spending 2 weeks
would have boiled down to about 2 hours including compile time if the project
in question didn't screw up a series of steps in the process.
>
> Some time ago I offered my services (months of cvs up; ./configure;
> make; make install every night) to a project in the knowledge that it
> would consume all of my spare time for a few months - and I did so for
> two reasons;
>
> 1. due to an accident I had rather a lot of time to spare, and wanted
> to make something useful from that time
> 2. i believed in the goals of that project and wanted to help it reach
> those goals (so I could actually use it - [see, selfish really]).
>
Of paramount importance. I wouldn't be spending time on these lists if I
didn't think it was worth it.
> Perhaps others can offer alternative (ideally honest) reasons - if we
> need people to knock the rough edges off of the 'product', then we need
> to know who they are and why they do it.
>
> For my part, I evangelise Linux Audio to anyone who'll listen. I send
> them URL's when they least expect it. I also conduct
> reading-comprehension tests to make sure they read them :)
>
> cheers
> R
Oh, hey I remember you! You're one of the few people who get the distributed
processing thing.
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