[OPEN-ILS-DEV] [OPEN-ILS-DOCUMENTATION] 2.3 Documentation progress.

[Lazar, Alexey Vladimirovich]

On Aug 9, 2012, at 08:50 , Dan Scott wrote:

> Hi Robert:
> 
> On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 9:31 AM, Soulliere, Robert
> <robert.soulliere at mohawkcollege.ca> wrote:
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> I set up Documentation processing for Evergreen  2.3. This is in “Alpha mode” and available for review.
>> 
>> It is available in the “Under Development” section of our documentation launch page:
>> 
>> http://docs.evergreen-ils.org/
>> 
>> I also added an outline page for folks working on content to update progress on chapters and sections:
>> 
>> http://www.open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=evergreen-docs_2.3:outline
>> 
>> You might notice a number of “Can this be pulled from 2.2 content?” notes in red.
>> 
>> The content for those chapters are already in 2.2 and are easy to pull into 2.3. All I need is for content authors or developers who are familiar with the content or development of the features in these chapter to indicate “yes” using the outline or the DIG list or launchpad.  Then, I can pull it in.
> 
> I'm sorry, but I don't think this is a sustainable model. I think we
> have to assume that all of the 2.2 content should be pulled into 2.3,
> and then deal with the exceptions as they arise. Beta-testers can open
> bugs against the documentation if they find discrepancies between what
> is documented and what they see in the beta release, but they can't do
> that if there's no content to look at.

I would favor the idea of pulling all documentation forward.  As I recently found out, it can be a bit disorienting to have a missing section for no reason other than it was not reviewed, even though the functionality was still there.

> 
> Perhaps as part of the Launchpad "pullrequest" and the review process,
> we could start flagging areas of the documentation that need to be
> changed as new features are added, or as old features are deprecated?

For clarity, perhaps all sections of the documentation could be marked with a statement similar to "Last tested/review for version X.X.X". I think it's fair to move documentation forward even if it may need further review or improvement, so long as expectations are set appropriately for documentation users.

On my Utopia, no software is ever released unless it has complete and fully tested documentation to accompany it, written in all languages.  Unfortunately, my Utopia is an imaginary place.  So, let's jut go with what we have and try to improve the documentation and processes as we can.

Alexey Lazar
PALS
Information System Developer and Integrator
507-389-2907
http://www.mnpals.org/