The amount of brain power in the WO community is staggering. This
was confirmed when I attended the WOWODC session last Sunday and
listened to the presenters. Yet, IMESHO, there is something bogus
about asking others to write documentation for you (see post
below). I HATE writing documentation and I am as guilty as the next
person of not doing it. Nevertheless, the difficulties in one's
initial approach to WO, Project Wonder, etc., and difficulties in
understanding and learning how to apply its (their) most powerful
features are its central weakness. And this weakness is in turn
based on a problem that is endemic to Apple and WO -- the lack of the
kind of documentation that clearly lays out the why, when and how of
the WO way.
Clearly written expository text can make practically all of WO and WO-
related methods (including when and how to use them) accessible to
almost anyone. The elegant design aspects of WO could similarly be
revealed by way of thorough, extensive text. I argued a couple of
years ago that a multiple volume non-virtual book would be the best
way to go, because in taking on such a project, the authors would
have to develop a comprehensive sense of how all the specific bits of
information fit together. Moreover (perhaps I am too old school)
there is a public-ness and permanence (of historical value) to a
book, a concrete thing that one can point others to, as a
authoritative and centralized source. Just imagine a 2-3 volume set
sitting on the shelf of every Barnes and Noble. Most responses to
my suggestion at that time were negative, mostly based on the idea
the such a project was impractical, which it probably is.
If I wanted to wax cynical, I would say that making WO available to
a wider audience is not a good idea -- people who were not smart
enough to 'just get it' (without documentation and examples) , or
not stubborn enough to approach things through extensive trial and
error (my approach), and who were unable to appreciate its
brilliance and elegance, might start using it -- the secrets of the
inner sanctum would be revealed widely and soon all sorts of bad
things might follow.
A more/less ? practical suggestion might be this -- require as part
of professional practice/protocol, that anyone who is developing
applications like WO or who is writing methods to enhance WO be
required to pair with a professional technical writer who's job it is
to writie documentation. It may well be that the developers
themselves may not be the best people to write the docs -- besides,
they won't do it anyway, as history has shown.
Mike Warner, curmudgeon at large
On Jun 14, 2007, at 8:57 AM, Steven Mark McCraw wrote:
My understanding is that the webobjects wiki book (http://
en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:WebObjects) is trying to become
the central point of documentation for WebObjects that people post
to. There's already a ton of info there, but we all know it could
use a ton more. At WOWODC, when the experts panel was asked what
could be done to help with project wonder, this is what they came
back with immediately: We need people writing documentation, and
this is the place to put it. Even if it's bad, there are so many
people watching it that bad info will get edited out quickly.
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