[Bf-docboard] coder - doc team meetings

Wed Dec 21 16:49:22 CET 2011

I think it would be very beneficial to have weekly or monthly meetings
between coders and core wiki contributors.

It would be great not to have to guess the functionality of a button or
python API call.

Besides that, blender development is currently missing out on one of the
strongest elements of Open Source programming - dedicated and free bug
testing.  I bet there's over 100 bugs lurking in the space between what
coders intended their work to do, and what users have "figured out" that
the functionality does.  I've seen several people mention on the forums
that they don't submit bug reports anymore unless they're 100% sure it's a
bug - but that's very hard to know if there is no documentation.

*Mindrones*, any chance that we could get Ton to bless a meeting hour each
week between devs and doccers sometime in the new year?  Just after the
sunday scrum might be convenient.  It could be voluntary at first, but any
coders delinquent in their documentation could be "required" to attend
before submitting more code.

Even if a coder is producing documentation, it wouldn't hurt to have their
work reviewed by an external party since their intimate understanding of
the code usually leads to assuming users know something they don't.

kestion

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 5:00 AM, <bf-docboard-request at blender.org> wrote:

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>   1. Re: Blender Reference (Pep Ribal)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:54:14 +0300
> From: Pep Ribal <pepribal at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Bf-docboard] Blender Reference
> To: Blender Educators and Trainers <bf-education at blender.org>,
>        bf-docboard at blender.org
> Message-ID: <4EF09386.2010108 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> I don't think it's a question of the number of writers... It's more a
> question to organize the work at a similar level of how the developers
> work. I would volunteer to turn my project into a community based one,
> but as I insisted, a roadmap should be defined, a scope should be
> defined, and leave as less as possible to improvisation... I'd really
> love to be on board of a really structured plan.
>
> At least I think that things should be discussed to see if it is agreed
> (or perhaps not) that the documentation work should be reorganized.
>
> I'm volunteering as a writer if we could define the work to do as a real
> project with definite goals. If needed I can help with organization as
> well, as I have many ideas which perhaps could be useful.
>
> I'm posting this message to the docboard as well. I think that this
> topic even fits more there.
>
> Regards.
>
> Pep.
>
> El 20/12/11 10:31, Knapp escribi?:
> > I made a post today with about the same idea in it. I agree with you
> > strongly. We really need at least as many manual writers as programs
> > just to keep up! Then there are all those undocumented bits that are
> > out there for example,  light field, or plenoptic, photography tools
> > in blender. You would never know they were there but I asked one day
> > on the dev email list. I made me really sit up and wonder what else
> > was out there in blender! I think writing your own book is the wrong
> > way to go. What we need is a really strong manual writers group.
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 7:04 AM, Pep Ribal<pepribal at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I haven't posted anything yet, because I feel that my vision on all this
> >> might be a bit off of what it seems to be the way of action you all are
> >> pointing out. However I feel that I must share my ideas. Actually I
> >> wasn't unsure if I had to post it or in bf-docboard... However if you
> >> think I also should post in the docboard list, tell me and I will do it
> too.
> >>
> >> Last 2 days I've been having interesting conversations in the IRC (with
> >> darKoram and greylica), and I think I should share my thoughts with the
> >> rest of you.
> >>
> >> The thing began 2 months ago. I've been thinking on becoming BFCT for a
> >> while, and finally I decided to go for it. However I find that the major
> >> problem for someone that wants to learn Blender in depth is the lack of
> >> an in-depth up-to-date Blender reference. The wiki can definitely be a
> >> good place to give you good hints, but I think it's far away from being
> >> a complete reference site... To make things "worse", development goes so
> >> fast that documentation gets outdated easily.
> >>
> >> I contributed in a few places in the wiki manual (and years ago I worked
> >> on the manual translation to spanish), but I think that it is currently
> >> not the resource (at least) I need.
> >>
> >> So I boldly decided to create my own Blender reference. My idea is to
> >> make a "dissection" of Blender, trying and testing every bit and piece
> >> of it, and to slowly create a brief reference (in Spanish at the moment)
> >> documents for myself which I could use in the future to make video
> >> tutorials, lectures and so on. I think that such a reference would be
> >> the perfect basis for: official manual, tutorials and video tutorials,
> >> examinations, courses, and a long etcetera.
> >>
> >> So these 2 months I've been "touching everything" in Blender in all the
> >> possible ways and forms. Result has been I start to learn a lot; at the
> >> same time I've done a lot of bug reporting (as I push Blender in all
> >> ways, and I find many little things), but it's hard, as ther is not a
> >> source of complete knowledge about all Blender features.
> >>
> >> The problem: it's very sluggish. That is Herculean task for a single
> >> person. However, I'm decided to continue no matter how long it takes.
> >> And it's gonna take me ages.
> >>
> >> With my recent conversations on the IRC, I would like to know if perhaps
> >> my personal project could be integrated into the Blender community. My
> >> goal atm is not certification, or exams, or whatever. I'm thinking on
> >> the long run: I am for a complete in-depth up-to-date Blender reference.
> >> Either made by me, or rather turned into an official project. Then, I
> >> can start thinking again on my BFCT, because I will have good material.
> >>
> >> If it worked ok, developers could even forget about documenting, except
> >> for a) the release logs and b) the weekly meetings.
> >>
> >> As I took a master certificate on project management time ago, I'm very
> >> aware that in every project planning is more than 50%. If a good project
> >> charter and plan could be designed (with all key elements of project
> >> planning or similar), and if enough people could commit, I would
> >> definitely change the approach from a personal project to a community
> one.
> >>
> >> The plan should integrate: writers, reference breakdown and assignments,
> >> regular meetings with the developers (let's say once a week?),
> >> schedules, definite milestones, resource management, scope, and so on.
> >>
> >> Regarding meetings with coders, I've been bothering them a bit those
> >> past days, but I think that "official" meetings would give writers much
> >> more confidence that their questions will be answered "this week".
> >>
> >> I think I've written too much. Well, I don't know if someone will think
> >> I'm saying a single interesting word, but at least I could share my
> >> thoughts. Let me know what you think.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >> Pep.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Bf-education mailing list
> >> Bf-education at blender.org
> >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-education
> >
> >
>
>
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