Heya!

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> On 17.03.2009, at 14:53, Göran Krampe wrote:
> 
>> Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>>> On 17.03.2009, at 13:36, Göran Krampe wrote:
>>>> Another reason is probably that I don't understand why anyone would 
>>>> only want to "use" Squeak without any interest in how it is being 
>>>> moved forward nor how it works inside. When you develop in Squeak 
>>>> you typically invest in its future, so why on earth would you not be 
>>>> considering yourself a member of the "squeak-dev" community?
>>> Good question. But when you develop in, say, Python, don't you 
>>> "invest in its future"? Still, most Python users would not contribute 
>>> to Python directly, right? But indirectly they do.
>>
>> "Contribute directly"? By developing in a language/system you 
>> immediately become involved - and thus you contribute. I am fairly 
>> sure that the majority of subscribers to squeak-dev have NOT their 
>> developer initials inside the image - nor necessarily in any other 
>> public package for Squeak. I still think they contribute.
>>
>> ...so what am I saying? :) I am just saying, yet another mailinglist? 
>> Sure, go ahead, that is IMHO *not* the point.
>>
>> The point is - should we draw these lines in the sand or should we 
>> perhaps draw *other* non-obvious lines or should we indeed draw them 
>> at all?
> 
> Well, a line in the sand is a political statement, and I don't see how 
> that would help us here. A fence otoh can help the residents feel 
> secure, as long as there are enough unlocked gates in sight.

Hehe!

> My point actually was not the new list, I just used that discussion to 
> illustrate the issue I see.

Right, ok.

> The question is if we could somehow support the (potentially large) 
> group of developers who just want to "use Squeak". There are many more 
> Smalltalk developers using Squeak than those who subscribe to the 
> mailing lists. Be it developers in a shop or students in a class, they 
> have no intrinsic interest in "advancing Squeak", at least not until 
> they master it.

To be concrete - perhaps we are lacking good "official" tutorials, docs. 
:) Yup, *boring*!!!

But let's try reasoning about this:

a) Beginners need guidance. And answers. There are two ways:
	1. Ask and get an answer. It works on IRC, lists etc.
	2. Follow docs. Hmmmm, there's a lot... but anything official?!

Reference docs are boring, and beginners don't plow through reference 
manuals. They may plow through a good intro book though. So intro books, 
tutorials and howtos are fun == good!


b) The community as we stand have x amount of time and effort to spend 
in total. We already spend time on improving stuff, because that is what 
we do to support our own needs and itches. Getting people/us to spend 
MORE time is a silly quest.

But perhaps we can get us to *focus* on this single *need*. *Official* 
fun and good docs! If there is a strong focus on this, and a strong Team 
formed with a good and fun approach - then I bet people may chip in and 
do some brain dumping. Not full time or anything, but a piece here and 
there. I can immediately sign up to write something good about 
SocketStream for example. :)


c) ...and when/if we would do this then I have some concrete ideas already:

1. Do not use the Squeak wiki. It is totally overwhelming and chaotic 
etc. Better start from scratch and get something new, fresh and clean. I 
am not saying that we throw all that valuable information away - let's 
just not claim it is anything more than a "haystack with some good 
needles in it".

2. Look into the Magic book idea. At *least* look into possibly tying 
unit tests into a validation model for the produced docs (one of the 
ideas I presented - the idea of using the life cycle of the unit tests 
to indicate possibly stale docs - because tests normally are black box 
tests and should evolve naturally in tandem with the external API). I do 
think it might be a good idea to prevent docs from "rotting" so fast. 
Because let's not kid ourselves - docs *rot*, just like code does. But 
we can make it rot less fast. And we can make sure our *official* docs 
are maintained if we keep them few enough :).


> I actually have no proposal about what to do, I just feel there is 
> something missing. Sorry for the noise ...

I am with ya. And there you have a proposal. Stressing the "a" in "a 
proposal", not necessarily the best - but at least food for thought  :)

regards, Göran