Re: Documentation frustrations
Re: Documentation frustrations
- Subject: Re: Documentation frustrations
- From: Andre <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 21:09:24 -0700
I'm wondering, now, please don't take this the wrong way, but is all
of the Cocoa/CoreFoundation stuff in a database?
When I go to a page for documentation, it doesn't seem to be
WebObjects or some other DB served page...
When I mean, all the Cocoa stuff, I mean, everything, the docs,
examples, Q&A's, Technotes etc...
I have a feeling most of its not... at least exposed to the WWW
MMalcom asked for a suggestion, so here's one... this assuming
somethings, so...
First, take apart all the docs, sit down, and go over and over, again
and again, find replications of the same data,
find the relationships between them, find old stale references and
remove them, then organize them logically
according to their relations, take everything, shove it in an
extremely well designed database,
build a WO app to organize, abstract, and present those various
sources in a consistent and
easily searchable manner. The really great thing about having it in a
database is
that then if one adds a category to a class, or a new constant value,
when its added, certain criteria are
set by the adder such that when accessed on the net its all
automatically set and viewable.
Especially if its a web objects app, then there can be all kinds of
great ways to abstract the knowledge hidden in
there. For example, a specialized WO app could index everything and
present it in a tree view,
just like the foundation/appkit classes org chart floating around,
then in each "entity" the associated
categories, constants, articles, Q&A's could be listed as the
"attributes" so when one clicks it, it goes to the
appropriate page...
Another example would be a NSBrowser-like view where one could search
iTunes-like and drill down
by pure constants, classes, methods, etc. Sometimes we aren't exactly
sure what we need to find...
Also, a spotlight-esqe search could be added to give much more
relevant results than what it gives now...
Lastly, I think sometimes a problem, especially people that are
delving into areas of limited knowledge,
certain vocabularies need to be explained. For example, if someone
was used to only handling foundation,
might not know what a "key window" is, then if the database had a
dictionary entity, if one added one for "keyWindow"
the WO app that governs page generation would parse the text, and on
the next display, every instance of the text
"keyWindow" when moused over highlights, and when clicked, opens a
small window with the definition and
other related infos... and it could do it with any word, and
automatically as definitions are added to the DB.
I think something that is "smart" that really ties everything
together is what is needed.
Not just something here and there, its a fundamental problem IMO.
That being said, the docs are getting better...
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