KD5NWA wrote:
I volunteered to help improve and in some cases create the
documentation for the FlexSDR software, it's beginning to sink in
that this is a large task (mommy, help!). I will work on documenting
the source code and provide documents on how to interface with the
code so hopefully many more persons will either understand it enough
so the can contribute features or be daring enough to use it as a
base to write their versions.
First a word or two, I'm not a professional documenter, I have worked
in the past as both a hardware and software engineer. I do comment my
projects fairly well so years later I can look at a project and not
be lost, or another programmer would have a good idea of what is
going on in the software. Any non-trivial project I've done has
external documents, besides the generous specific comments in the source.
I'll start generally in the order below;
1. the source files and what they generally contain.
2 the environment required to compile the sources, basically a
"how to generate the software".
3 the organization of the software, who calls whom, and for what purpose.
4 with the new architecture, how to interface and use the modules.
5 the source files themselves, make sure all routines have
documentation, including at critical steps in the procedures/functions.
This is something I and many others who don't seem to find time to code
might well do. I'd like to try, especially if there are bite sized
pieces I could volunteer to do and then polish off in an evening, say,
while I'm waiting for Argentina to show up on 80 meters. A little
organization would be necessary, not much, but some.
In this regard, one probably would have to pick a particular level
(perhaps the first stable one or some specified one at any rate) and
then hand out tasks from there to whomever was willing.
I've done things of this sort already for the SDR 1000 manual and a few
of them were edited and adopted. So, there's precedent for this kind of
thing.
The beauty is, it doesn't have to be perfect. Some of what I did was,
shall we say, heavily edited. But, I think the biggest issue is getting
the first draft that those who have the real knowledge (but not the
time) can critique and get me or the master editor to fix up so that the
net result is what we want.
At any rate, I offer it as a practical suggestion that would let me, and
perhaps others, participate.
Larry WO0Z
