I think this is a fine idea, I have quite a bit of experience with building PDF's on the fly with PHP. If this documentation is maintained in a database, casual surfers could peruse an HTML version, and a current PDF version could be generated with largely the same code on the spot.
I'd be willing to donate time for this. I know there's current documentation software out there as well, I bet I could build dynamic PDF code for that too. I'd also be willing to write, which I'm not bad at if that's needed. I really like the ability for users to post comments such as is used on the php site and (badly IMHO) on the mysql site. I've got a server I could host this stuff on too if dbmail.org wants a doc subdomain, or a mirror. -Micah On Wed June 18 2003 4:54 am, Feargal Reilly wrote: > Since I started this thread, here's my thoughts. > > Documentation is *always* the hardest thing to get people to do. > > If somebody has decent coding ability, they'll prefer to contribute to a > project by fixing bugs, or adding features. (They will of course fail to > document these contributions too :) ) > > There are usually a slew of users who do not have the ability to > contribute in this way, but they do have the experience of MAKING IT > WORK. These are the people who think, "Wow! This really helped me out, I > wish I could give something back." They may be sysadmins who don't code, > but know how to read man pages. They may be C hackers who faint at the site > of Perl. Whatever. Given the opportunity to present their experiences > though, they will. > > And since this is the hardest thing to get people to do, you have to make > it as easy as possible for them. Given this, as much as I love LaTeX, and > as useful CVS is, very few people will learn the unfamiliar just to > contribute a flag they found useful with procmail. > > It was with this in mind, for another project that I hacked up a web > interface for people to use. I've thrown it up an example at > http://www.helgrim.com/dbmaildocs/ > > The interface is at http://www.helgrim.com/dbmaildocs/manage/ username and > password is 'guest' > > Everything is stored in a database, HTML generated on the fly, PDFs > periodically. Since it's aimed at HTML, there'd be no problem generating > LaTeX files too. > > There'd be no problem setting it as docs.dbmail.com, or for the dbmail guys > to grab the files periodically. > > Comments? > > -fr. > > -- > Feargal Reilly, > Codeshifter, > Chrysalink Systems. > > > On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 13:26:14 +0200 > > Magnus Sundberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > lou wrote: > > > In some email I received from Roel Rozendaal - IC&S <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on > > > Wed, 18 Jun 2003 12:17:08 +0200, wrote: > > > > <snip> > > > > > I think so, easy to update, and add automatically date automatically > > > for the last update also it's very simple. > > > I also think LaTeX. > > > > > > Any other ideas? Since we manage to agree on the future existence of > > > dbmail-doc. There're some more stuff to be discussed. Forms and stuff, > > > blahblah you know. > > > > I disagree on the LaTex issue, I believe we should use the > > infrastructure from the Linux Documentation Project. To make it > > consistent with most other documentation. > > > > Another approach is some kind of databse driven manual, something > > like the online mysql manual with comments. > > > > I doubt I will be writing any documents of the former type, but I > > am quite shure I will contribute with comments to the later. > > > > Magnus > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dbmail mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://mailman.fastxs.nl/mailman/listinfo/dbmail
