Last Words...(documentation)

2001-08-13 Thread Joe Kelsey

OK already.  I am sick and tired of this documentation discussion and it
appears that it is too hot of a topic for this list.

However, I have one last comment to make.  TWO people have written to me
and said that the reason THEY write documentation in their "day" jobs is
that they get PAID for it.  So, excuse me!  I guess real programmers
only write documentation when they are PAID!  Obviously, working on a
FREE product, you don't get paid so you don't document!  After all, the
meaning is obvious from the code!

/Joe

p.s.  I don't really have to supply sarcasm markers here, do I?

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Re: Last Words...(documentation)

2001-08-13 Thread David O'Brien

On Mon, Aug 13, 2001 at 11:23:12AM -0700, Joe Kelsey wrote:
> TWO people have written to me and said that the reason THEY write
> documentation in their "day" jobs is that they get PAID for it.  So,
> excuse me!  I guess real programmers only write documentation when they
> are PAID!

Yes!

> Obviously, working on a FREE product, you don't get paid so you don't
> document!  After all, the meaning is obvious from the code!

No, documenting is drudgery.  People don't do non-fun things for free.

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Re: Last Words...(documentation)

2001-08-13 Thread Julian Elischer


Some of us try documant our stuff so that others can use it
and because we feel that it's better to do something right
than shoddily.


On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, David O'Brien wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 13, 2001 at 11:23:12AM -0700, Joe Kelsey wrote:
> > TWO people have written to me and said that the reason THEY write
> > documentation in their "day" jobs is that they get PAID for it.  So,
> > excuse me!  I guess real programmers only write documentation when they
> > are PAID!
> 
> Yes!
> 
> > Obviously, working on a FREE product, you don't get paid so you don't
> > document!  After all, the meaning is obvious from the code!
> 
> No, documenting is drudgery.  People don't do non-fun things for free.
> 
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> with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
> 


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Re: Last Words...(documentation)

2001-08-14 Thread Terry Lambert

Joe Kelsey wrote:
> However, I have one last comment to make.  TWO people have written to me
> and said that the reason THEY write documentation in their "day" jobs is
> that they get PAID for it.  So, excuse me!  I guess real programmers
> only write documentation when they are PAID!  Obviously, working on a
> FREE product, you don't get paid so you don't document!  After all, the
> meaning is obvious from the code!

There are tons of productization issues surrounding Open Source
projects which involve work that peole will only do if the get
PAID to do it.  One of these, historically, has been the install
process, and another the release engineering process (Jordan was
PAID by Walnut Creek to do it, then was PAID by BSDI to do it,
abd ...).

The real question you need to answer is "what needs to be done
to incentivize commercial organizations to PAY for the work to
be done?".

For documentation, I have suggested that FreeBSD find some way
to leverage the situation where students are being PAID with
their grades to do technical writing.

For installation, I've suggested that sysintall not be the first
user experience (and it seems that this has met with lukewarm,
but not cold, reception the last time it was raised), to permit
a company to be PAID for its distribution on the basis of it
being a better first experience for the user.

Likewise, Bill Paul is PAID to write network drivers, and many
of us are PAID, one way or the other, to hack on the code that
the ones PAYING us want hacked on...

Note that this is not limited to commercial organizations: DARPA
is currently PAYING to improve FreeBSD security...

-- Terry

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