As a member of the beancount community I can see how Google Docs has huge benefits in the practical world:
- WYSIWYG - Editable by everyone with an account - Changesets - Inline-comments - It feels like a document, not a website (altough this is not always a benefit) And I also get why people might want something else, having just started worked on a new starting-point for the beancount documentation (based on Sphinx; http://aumayr.github.io/beancount-docs-static/): - Ideological reasons (Google is evil for [some|many] people in these communities) - What if Google Docs goes away? Exporting the content is a feature, but then manually converting the content to fit a new system would be neccesary anyway. - Navigation is a pain IMHO (missing sidebar-menus, etc.) - No syntax highlighting or API documentation (the second reason, after navigation, why I started the efford mentioned above) Especially the navigation-part is a showstopper for Google Docs IMHO. But, as mentioned, the benefits are really helpful for getting lots and lots of feedback, because it's so easy to edit. Implementing a new documentation system with WYSIWYG, Changesets, an Inline-comment-feature, but also easy navigation, search and syntax highlighting is an option, too. I'd be willing to work on it, if consensus is reached that this would be the best option. On Wednesday, February 10, 2016 at 2:28:00 AM UTC+1, Martin Blais wrote: > > On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 7:55 PM, John Wiegley <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> >>>>> Martin Blais <[email protected] <javascript:>> writes: >> >> > What's wrong with Google Docs? >> >> I do not trust it stay around as long as Ledger will, and I wouldn't want >> to >> have to scrape and convert all the text once it does disappear. Better to >> pick an open, enduring format now and stick with it. >> > > You speak as if these things are equivalent. Google Docs vs. text-based > formats isn't a fair comparison: By using texinfo, you're foregoing daily > (yes, daily, and I'm not exaggerating) feedback, corrections and > suggestions on your documentation and in-context interaction with your > users about which parts are confusing and where they suggest improvements > to it--and I respond to them. It's the best experience I've ever had > writing user documentation. It's an experience. It's a workflow. It's > something else. These aren't the same thing. > > About openness: You should have nothing to worry about, here's the open, > free API: > https://developers.google.com/drive/v2/reference/ > > Here's a script that uses it to automatically download all the docs: > > https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/src/tip/src/python/beancount/docs/download_docs.py > > You can also click on a folder to download a zipped version of the > contents if you're the owner. Takes a few seconds. > You can download in OpenDocument and even .txt formats. Conversion, should > it be required, should be a breeze. > Nothing to worry about. > And besides, do you really believe that Google would just pull the plug on > Docs without a long and loud warning and an archival feature? > > I find the reaction from people in the OSS community interestingly > puzzling and somewhat curmudgeonly. I sort-of understand it in a way: for > many problems, for years, sticking with Linux and simple solutions has > proved superior to many commercial solutions to many problems, at least in > the small scope. And most people deal within the scope of small and medium. > And we've all experience the frustrating experience of working in some > nasty commercial environments. And we're attached to those homemade > solutions where we feel productive. But this is a case where I'm witnessing > the OSS community unable to think outside the box. Docs is measurably > better for shared collaborative editing than anything else out there. It's > not the same thing at all. > > -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
