On 09/12/11 03:52, David Seikel wrote: > While on the subject of basic source documentation for the masses - > > Is it really that hard to put at the top of a README file basic details > of what any given project actually IS? Half the time when I'm trying to > figure out what some random E project I've not paid attention to in the > past actually is all about, I'm none the wiser. The README is either > completely empty (coz autofoo enforces it's existence, but not it's > content), or completely fails to answer the question "Um, so what's it > about?". > > Half the official websites about software projects have the same > problem, you look at their front page, and all you see is "YAY! version > X.mumble of foobaromatic has been released.". Nothing about what > foobaromatic is, and why the casual visitor should care. If you are > lucky, there might be an "About" link to a page that says "Foobaromatic > is a gestalt fromulator. It fromulates gestalts better than the others > coz we take more interesting mind grommeling drugs than the other > gestalt fromulator developers.". > > Some people have gone to those websites coz a search engine popped it up > as a result to their query, and they are looking at it to see if that > page actually has any relevance to what they are searching for. > > At least the enlightnenment.org webiste is better than that. But a lot > of the E SVN README files (probably the first thing people look at to > see if the project might be interesting to them) leave a lot to be > desired. Likely for the same reason as the web sites. It's important > to the developers to make important announcements about the progress of, > um, whatever it is. Perhaps at the very beginning, they forgot to > ever describe, um, whatever it is. You know while they where busy in > the orgiastic throws of starting to develop the exciting new, um, > whatever it is. > > The projects name might not be a clue when it's often more important to > start the name with the letter E than to be very descriptive of the > project. For example, entrance was somewhat descriptive, elsa, um > that's a girls name like PAM, but will most people understand the > relevance of the name to the project? Elsa's README at least tries to > say what it does, a lot of projects in E SVN don't bother.
I completely agree, especially with our weird naming of things :) -- Tom. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cloud Services Checklist: Pricing and Packaging Optimization This white paper is intended to serve as a reference, checklist and point of discussion for anyone considering optimizing the pricing and packaging model of a cloud services business. Read Now! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51491232/ _______________________________________________ enlightenment-devel mailing list enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel
