[OPEN-ILS-DOCUMENTATION] introducing ourselves

[Scott McKellar]

On Sunday 07 June 2009 7:23 pm, Paul J. Weiss wrote:
> Karen and I were thinking that with the renewed interest and energy on
> documentation, it might be a good idea to have us list subscribers
> introduce ourselves to each other. I would be particularly be interested
> to know what your interest/need in Evergreen documentation is, how you
> might like to get involved (or not), and any experience you have with
> documentation that might be relevant.

<snip>

I'm a developer at Equinox Software Inc.  I've been on the payroll since 
January, after contributing on a hobbyist basis for about a year and a half.

My interest is mainly in internal documentation of the software, for use by 
developers.  User documentation is important too, but I'm not in a position 
either to read it or to write it.

The Evergreen software is not simple, and neither is the OSRF software 
underlying it.  Without internal documentation, the only way to figure it out 
is to read the code.  But you have to read a LOT of code to get any notion of 
how the whole thing works.  It's like reading the newspaper through a soda 
straw -- I might be able to correct the spelling, grammar, and punctuation, 
but I have no idea what's happening in the Middle East.

With better documentation of the internals, it will be easier for developers 
to come up to speed and contribute, whether from inside Equinox or from 
outside.

As time permits I hope to document some of what I've learned.  I already wrote 
a couple of documents that Karen used as a pilot project to investigate the 
use of DocBook.  I will likely work on some of the processes and procedures 
to be used  within Equinox to turn the XML into something readable.  I am 
happy to let other people decide on the formatting.

Scott McKellar