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MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

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Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#161

Post by userbinator »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #137
blitblitblit wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example would be it is not possible to even make a PR request on Github as half the GUI no longer works in non-WebComponents browers. If it were open source we could perhaps see what WebComponent feature they think is missing and implement it in the browser engine, as it is they do not have any desire to collaborate and the black box makes it all the more difficult to debug. Github's response: "... further degrad…

If you've chosen to use a web browser that's forked from an old version of Firefox and isn't aiming for compatibility with modern Web Platform Tests, you're going to encounter a lot of obstacles. The fact that you can't see the server-side code generating the failing client-side code, which you can see, seems like the least of them.

What does creating a PR even need in terms of functionality? It's effectively nothing more than a big HTML form with some inputs, something that's been around and working perfectly fine in browsers for decades.

The other comment here about how it's like complaining it does not work in IE6 is really pertinent: Yes it damn well should, because I should not need the latest technology just to do something that would've been perfectly possible with the technology of TWO DECADES AGO. It should be entirely possible to use GitHub with a text-based browser because none of its interactions require anything more than that.

It's sad that I could probably write a more accessible interface in less time and resources, and I haven't even done much in the way of web development, yet dedicated web-developers with uninhibited trendchasing mentality will fuck it up so badly with this constant need for useless breaking changes.

Seriously, fuck this "modern" bullshit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23136688

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19664509

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18486124

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#162

Post by zelly »

adamretter wrote: post #85

So, they say that the system is evolving, but from these parts of the article I would argue that the ease of contributing (which is the important part) is taking a massive hit: > "you will no longer be able to click Edit on a page, make and save a change, and have it show up nearly immediately on the page. You’ll also no longer be able to do your edits in a WYSIWYG editor." > "you won’t have a WYSIWYG to instantly se…

The success of Medium has proven that lowering the barrier to write content is extremely valuable. If you're asking people to "work for free" then it should be as easy as possible and not feel like an errand. When you're inspired to write something, you just want to write it and not have the computer get in your way, or else you'll understandably give up. Wikipedia also proved this a couple decades ago.

Also rolling your own wiki is beyond stupid in this day and age. Just import all the MDN articles to MediaWiki. Making a script for this is a one-person weekend project. As I understand it though, Mozilla owns the copyright to all the content and they might shut you down for doing so.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#163

Post by rhizome »

bawolff wrote: post #109
pianoben wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt that the Github-based CMS will allow for community-provided translations. I _do_ doubt that we'll see anything like the current set of languages covered at anything like the current levels of breadth and quality. Like I said in another comment, approximately nobody translates technical documentation for fun.

A surprising amount of mediawiki documentation is translated by volunteers (i cant speak to the quality as i dont speak nonenglish, realistically the english source material isnt that great) but volunteers do translate things

Perhaps interestingly, I had a frustration in the other direction just last night:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Soria

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincia_de_Soria

Notice that the English page seems obviously translated by a non-native speaker, which has some implications not favorable to Mozilla's behavior here, specifically that ESL people will contribute documentation in English that native English-language speakers won't even provide for themselves.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#164

Post by madeofpalk »

zerocrates wrote: post #46
whalesalad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't fully grok the term. Is it a loose/blanket term sorta like 'devops' or is it a more literal prescription of actual requirements and practices?

I can get that a significant part of it is just "static HTML," what I don't quite get is what makes it different than just static site generation. I guess that would be the "A" part...

no, that's it. jamstack - static site generator, but javascript

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#165

Post by rhizome »

johnfn wrote: post #48
eznzt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's stuff like MDN that attracts donations.

Fun fact: I have an open source repo with millions of downloads, tens of thousands of active users, and, for at least a year, a prominently displayed donate button. How much in donations do you think it took in over its lifetime? Hint: it's less than $200. Donations don't really work.

>for at least a year, a prominently displayed donate button.

Just to be sure, are you referring to the "BuyMeCoffee" button on the GitHub page for the extension (https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim)?

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#166

Post by bawolff »

rhizome wrote: post #163
bawolff wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A surprising amount of mediawiki documentation is translated by volunteers (i cant speak to the quality as i dont speak nonenglish, realistically the english source material isnt that great) but volunteers do translate things

Perhaps interestingly, I had a frustration in the other direction just last night: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Soria https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provincia_de_Soria Notice that the English page seems obviously translated by a non-native speaker, which has some implications not favorable to Mozilla's behavior here, specifically that ESL people will contribute documentation in English that native English…

Wikipedia translations are a bit different because they are not meant to be 1:1. The translations in theory are entirely separate articles.

I was thinking more like https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download vs https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download/es

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#167

Post by easton »

blitblitblit wrote: post #113
tomcam wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to be inflammatory here. What does it matter if Microsoft has a proprietary front end for Github when all the docs are in markdown?

One example would be it is not possible to even make a PR request on Github as half the GUI no longer works in non-WebComponents browers. If it were open source we could perhaps see what WebComponent feature they think is missing and implement it in the browser engine, as it is they do not have any desire to collaborate and the black box makes it all the more difficult to debug. Github's response: "... further degrad…

GitHub's CLI lets you make a pull request and edit it in $EDITOR, works great.

https://github.com/cli/cli

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#168

Post by EE84M3i »

jorams wrote: post #42
whalesalad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't fully grok the term. Is it a loose/blanket term sorta like 'devops' or is it a more literal prescription of actual requirements and practices?

A big problem is that the "Jamstack" branding and the website make it deliberately unclear that "JAM" is an acronym. I can't even find it expanded on the site. Instead it contains relatively verbose explanations that never become clearer than the actual words they so desperately avoid. It's Javascript, API, Markup. Put "pre-rendered" before "Markup" and you understand everything. Maybe they do this because they reall…

They don't want it to be an acronym anymore: https://github.com/jamstack/jamstack.org/issues/279

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#169

Post by sergeykish »

adamretter wrote: post #85

So, they say that the system is evolving, but from these parts of the article I would argue that the ease of contributing (which is the important part) is taking a massive hit: > "you will no longer be able to click Edit on a page, make and save a change, and have it show up nearly immediately on the page. You’ll also no longer be able to do your edits in a WYSIWYG editor." > "you won’t have a WYSIWYG to instantly se…

Can we have both PR and WYSIWYG? Login with github, Edit page, click button to submit PR with your changes.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#170

Post by andrewmcwatters »

crazygringo wrote: post #87
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean for this to come off rude, but at some point you have to learn that spending time in life on things you don't control can have extremely negative costs. How can you be angry? MDN isn't yours. Do they owe you something? It's volunteer work. You're not owed anything. You should consider attribution a privilege.

I don't mean for this to come off rude, but how can you be so cold? How can you lack so much empathy? At some point you have to learn that things matter to people. Volunteer projects rely on an unspoken contract that symbolic recognition, awarded fairly, is a real motivation. And if a project wants to succeed, it needs to take that seriously. Does the project owe its contributors anything? Legally, no. But if it want…

Because that’s not how the world works. This is evident by living in it. Otherwise, this wouldn’t have happened.

What’s happens in the real world is that you abide by contractual agreements and if a party breaks the agreement, you sue them for breach of contract. This also requires that you can sue them for breach of contract. Otherwise, you can kick dirt.

Understand now?

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