Scott wrote: > ... lower the bar to getting a copy of AOLserver running ...
To revisit the documentation theme in this context of attracting new users, I remember the sensory overload of picking up AOLserver / ACS from scratch 18 months ago. I've been developing software on and off for 38 years (yikes!), so it's no sweat in theory to pick up a few new languages / platforms. But becoming proficient is another story - in the beginning, you have to look up almost everything - very little is yet committed to memory, and you are in the blind spot of "don't know what you don't know" an awful lot of the time. In this mode, you want to access documentation differently than when you are an expert or expert-in-the-making. For example, you often want to see things organized by function, not alphabetically -- you don't yet know the name of what you're looking for! You want to see a function's arguments and their meaning right next to its overall description for fastest access - not looking in two different places. You find it useful to browse among _all_ related commands in a given functional area to get a full mental picture of what's available, and start thinking about when to employ each. A grouping scheme that's fairly rich helps you build your knowledge this way. I don't think this requires separate documentation for neophytes, but perhaps a separate and differently organized set of links into the documentation. I created my own high-level crib sheet for the tcl API a year ago, with links to the online documentation, and used it faithfully for several months. But I never fixed the places where my initial understanding was wrong, or where items were missing, or where I never used functions and didn't learn about them. And then when the on-line documentation file structure changed, I dropped it. But it could well form a useful starting point now. Take a look at it here (no off-page links work): www.webility.md/aol-tcl-a.htm (not our AOLserver site) I'll volunteer to take it further if y'all think it's worth it. Dave Siktberg
