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Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs

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Re: Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Three.js project has really shit documentation for most things, but they have scrupulously-maintained examples for their library which serve to answer most questions.

Care to give a few examples of where three.js docs are lacking?

Just a bunch of todos for the semi-auto-generated stuff, lots of missing information about how the whole thing fits together. Not clear what is core functionality and what is well-maintained extensions for the examples (OBJ loader, etc.)

It's a great library, don't get me wrong--just not the docs I'm looking for. I've been meaning to contribute back to help with this issue.

Re: Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs

#32
The biggest thing I'd like to see more often are usable example applications. Not just snippets of example code, but working applications which show off some aspect of what your library or tool is intended to do in a complete form. And keep in mind that people looking to see if they want to use your stuff see buggy applications, that reflects on everything.

There's a joke to the effect of "Every working Unix program derives from 'Hello, world!' in K&R." There's a similar joke about Windows programs and the first example program in Petzold's book. Write your library or tool's version of a 'Hello, world!', make it tasteful, and keep it working across bug fixes and version changes. That's the testbed; that's what people new to your work will modify stepwise into whatever they really want to build.

The second thing I wish I saw more often are "Theory Of Operation" documents, which document how the developers expect their stuff to be used.

Who is the intended audience? What other stuff do the developers expect the intended audience has seen? If it's a library, what do the developers expect the core of a client application to look like? If it's a tool, what do the developers expect its most common mode of interaction to be? It shouldn't be a listing of what each function does, but something that gives an idea of what the developers think the core functionality is would be very helpful.

Get into the head of your users. What would you want to know going in, if you were a user?

Re: Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs

#33
post #20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, there's programs that use info? o.O

Oh yeah. 'man cp' from my Arch Linux machine: --- SEE ALSO The full documentation for cp is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and cp programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'cp invocation' should give you access to the complete manual. --- I ran that 'info' command and promptly ran the one emacs command I have memorized: C-x C-c :)

I recently switched to Emacs and started learning it by going through the tutorial (C-h t). Near the end of the tutorial, it refers you to the Emacs manual which uses info (C-h r). After going to the manual I had no idea how to navigate, so I ran the info tutorial (h). I don't really have a point, but I think it's funny that I had to run the a tutorial to get help.

Re: Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs

#34

Not necessary docs, but what I have been observing in a lot of OSS is an absence of one-liner explaining what the project exactly is; especially ones without descriptive project name. Good "feature list" would probably help, but it's just a pain when reading through 5 paragraphs down only to find that it's not what I think it is.

You mean you can't figure it out from an alphabetical list of command line flags? Oh, wait, neither can I.

Re: Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs

#35
post #20
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, there's programs that use info? o.O

Oh yeah. 'man cp' from my Arch Linux machine: --- SEE ALSO The full documentation for cp is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and cp programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'cp invocation' should give you access to the complete manual. --- I ran that 'info' command and promptly ran the one emacs command I have memorized: C-x C-c :)

Coreutils come from the GNU project so I wouldn't really count it. :p

Re: Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs

#37
post #9

Having offline docs can be quite handy. A few years ago a friend and I put together an iOS app called iCPAN, so that we could have offline Perl docs at our disposal. This kind of thing is particularly helpful because perldoc doesn't work on modules which you have not yet installed. It's also great if you want to read Perl docs on the subway, but I'll admit that's not everyone's cup of tea. :)

Now I feel almost obliged to mention having read EmberJS docs while on the crapper. Thanks.
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