Re: Getting Started With WO site
Re: Getting Started With WO site
- Subject: Re: Getting Started With WO site
- From: Janine Sisk <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:19:18 -0700
I've been participating in open source projects for a long time, and
I've seen many different approaches. In my experience, when people
worry about having too many sources of information it ends up stifling
participation. Each person who sets up their own site has reasons why
they don't want to use the existing one(s). Whether or not the rest
of the community would agree with their reasons really isn't
important; what matters is that if they are discouraged from doing
so, they typically don't contribute at all, or not nearly as much as
they would have on their own site. I think it is better to let people
set up various sites, make sure there is one central point where they
can all be found, and let the situation shake itself out. Usually one
(or a small number) of the sites will emerge as the most used and the
others will fade away. The thing to avoid is having discouraged the
person who would have set up that most used site so that it is never
created at all.
Note that I'm not suggesting that the site I proposed will become one
of those; it's meant as a site for those who wish to participate in
and;or follow the writing of my tutorial. It's not a documentation
site per se and not one that everyone is going to want to go to.
janine
On Jun 14, 2007, at 8:57 AM, Steven Mark McCraw wrote:
My understanding is that the webobjects wiki book (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:WebObjects
) is trying to become the central point of documentation for
WebObjects that people post to. There's already a ton of info
there, but we all know it could use a ton more. At WOWODC, when the
experts panel was asked what could be done to help with project
wonder, this is what they came back with immediately: We need
people writing documentation, and this is the place to put it. Even
if it's bad, there are so many people watching it that bad info will
get edited out quickly.
I think there's a danger in having TOO many informational sites. If
everybody decides to wing it because they get on a high at a
developer's conference regarding being able to document stuff to
widen the movement, I think we will end up with dozens of blogs,
half finished tutorials, etc. There's a reason there isn't much
documentation on Wonder and WebObjects: writing good documentation
is HARD and time consuming, and not a very glamorous task. So if
you have 10 spare hours to write a decent article on a very specific
issue, I think everybody would be better served if that went to the
wikibook. That way, everybody can always point to one resource as
definitive.
I don't mean to be preachy about it or rain on anybody's parade that
is putting up yet another site about WebObjects. What I just wrote
might sound snappy or mean, but I don't mean it that way. I'm just
trying to advocate a central repository for everything so people
don't have to go here and there to get various pieces of the overall
puzzle. Maybe if you start a site, you could also make sure that
all of the contents of that site are also posted in the wiki book in
the sensible place? Thoughts?
On Jun 14, 2007, at 11:40 AM, Janine Sisk wrote:
I have been thinking sort of along the same lines. I have received
several requests this week to put my tutorial up where other people
can edit it, but due to some bad experiences in the past (not with
anyone here) I get hives just thinking about allowing open
editing. So my thought was to set up a blog specifically for my
tutorial, where people could post comments, point out mistakes and
suggest future topics. This would also allow me to announce
updates to all interested parties without spamming everyone on
these lists.
I've taken the opposite approach as David on tutorials - Mine is
long on words and code, with no screenshots at all. That's partly
due to time constraints and I might eventually put some in, but I
think there is room for both styles. Some people are verbal
learners, others are visual.
I think David's idea is a great one, and I hope this can become the
central repository of links to WO-related content. Things are a
little confusing right how - people talk about "the wiki" and you
always have to ask "which one"? That probably won't change, but
having one place to send people for links to everything else would
be very helpful.
janine
PS some people have asked me where to find my tutorial, so here's a
shameless plug. The downloads are linked from http://wiki.objectstyle.org/confluence/display/WOCOM/WO+Resources+and+Ideas
.
On Jun 13, 2007, at 11:29 PM, David LeBer wrote:
Hey all,
For those of you who are not attending WWDC, there has been a
lively discussion about many things WO. Motivated by this I
whipped together a WO Getting Started page <http://gettingstartedwithwo.codeferous.com/
> and I'd like to get your feedback.
This is just a baby step, but please let me know if you think I'm
heading in the right direction.
This the first of what I hope will be a trio of sites:
I would like to create a general WO news blog (with multiple core
contributers) so there is a central clearing house for news of
interest to the WO community (new features in Wonder or WOLips,
announcements from Apple, significant additions to the wikkibook,
good blog posts, etc).
I would also like to create a tutorial blog where short clear
graphical task-oriented tutorials could be posted - I have some
ideas of how I'd want these tutorials to be presented, but I still
have to work out the style guidelines (I'm thinking: short on
text, long on screenshots or maybe screencasts).
I approach this with some trepidation - because someone seems to
try and do something like this once a year - but my goal is to
present unified (a dare I say) inviting front to new developers to
the WebObjects platform. We have a ton of outstanding material in
the various wikis and lists, and I have no interest in replacing
that, but I'd like to give new users a way to find and make sense
of what is there.
Again, feedback (and offers of assistance) is welcome and
appreciated.
--
;david
--
David LeBer
Codeferous Software
'co-def-er-ous' adj. Literally 'code-bearing'
site: http://codeferous.com
blog: http://davidleber.net
profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidleber
--
Toronto Area Cocoa / WebObjects developers group:
http://tacow.org
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Webobjects-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden