Re: Getting Started With WO site
Re: Getting Started With WO site
- Subject: Re: Getting Started With WO site
- From: Steven Mark McCraw <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:34:53 -0400
Janine,
I think you make a good point. The last thing I want to do is
discourage participation. Maybe people can just be on the lookout
for useful content on these third party smaller sites, and can ask
the author for permission to post in the wikibook (or whatever).
Also, maybe the third party site authors can be aware that they will
get more eyes reading their material if they post in the central
repository as well, and maybe even link back and forth (i.e., on the
independent site in the header of the article, put a link to the
effect of "also published in the WO wiki book" and in the wiki book a
link at the top of the article that says "originally published at
http://www.mywosite.com";). Perhaps that will seem like a good
compromise to people and further the goal of getting good
documentation out there in an easy to find place.
Of course, if people aren't into posting into the wiki, they just
aren't into it. I think it would be ideal if they did, but I'm not
looking down on them if they don't agree. Just wanted to plant the
seed that it might benefit the community the most if everybody posted
to a central place. It should always be approached in the manner of
"hey, you wrote a great article on this. Thanks! Most people go
here to read about WebObjects stuff. Can we put your great article
there?" as opposed to "hey, why are you doing all that work to set
up a site for that when a better site already exists."
Mark
On Jun 14, 2007, at 12:19 PM, Janine Sisk wrote:
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
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