Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 08:53:15 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Doug Rabson <dfr@nlsystems.com> Cc: Hellmuth Michaelis <hm@hcs.de>, nick.hibma@jrc.it, mike@smith.net.au, peter@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: All this and documentation too? (was: cvs commit: src/sys/isa sio.c) Message-ID: <19990623085315.S76907@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9906221915000.80685-100000@herring.nlsystems.com>; from Doug Rabson on Tue, Jun 22, 1999 at 07:19:47PM %2B0100 References: <m10wNKF-0000dCC@hcswork.hcs.de> <Pine.BSF.4.05.9906221915000.80685-100000@herring.nlsystems.com>
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On Tuesday, 22 June 1999 at 19:19:47 +0100, Doug Rabson wrote: > On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, Hellmuth Michaelis wrote: > >>> From the keyboard of Nick Hibma: >> >>> And as to the author: Writing docu while you are implementing something >>> might work in a commercial environment where you want to be able to >>> market something before it's sell-by date, but for hobbiests who >>> basically spend the odd evening doing something, it is too much hassle. >> >> In case FreeBSD wants to enter commercial environments, we have to behave >> like behaving in commercial environments. >> >> I know that it is current behaviour, much easier and obviously a commonly >> accepted thing that code, subsystem and/or changes are not and need not >> to be documented, but this is not a reason in itself for not changing this. >> >> Also, i think that the argument Mike and others use: "don't complain for a >> lack of things, contribute!" - which i use and used all the time - is not >> valid for this issue: at least i can't contribute because i don't understand >> things (now someone could argue, that i'm wrong here ...). >> >> The last thing i want is a flamewar on this topic and i don't write this >> because i want to piss onto someones shoes. And i don't write about a >> man page for "ls" or "more" but a fundamental change in FreeBSD's inner >> architecture. > > Writing software in one's spare time is a case of triage. When I have a > day or two to spend working on FreeBSD, I have to make a choice on what > most needs doing and if that is a choice between technical writing or > designing an algorithm to fix the current limitations of driver detach and > KLD unload, I don't think the technical writing is going to win. > > People must also bear in mind that the most important target release for > this software is 4.0 which isn't scheduled until next year. I am certain > that the documentation situation will improve before that release. Doug, before you get the wrong impression, I don't think anybody's criticizing you. My intention was to raise the awareness of the importance, not of low-level documentation, but of "this is why we did it this way, and this is how to use it" kind of documentation; much of it could be in mail messages, but it's stuff which only the authors can really explain. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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