Praise: Rev Documentation to the rescue

[Dennis Brown]

Chipp,

Not tongue-in-cheek, but direct analogy.  I have seen more excuses  
for why we don't have an easy path for newbies than a porcupine has  
quills.  We don't need to excuse the state of affairs --that is just  
giving permission to keep the status quo.  We need a plan to improve  
things.

I get the distinct impression that many actually do not want to see  
the exclusive club of knowledgeable Transcript programmers expand to  
quickly by having good docs.  It almost appears to be a conflict of  
interests between professionals who want to keep the highly  
productive club small because it is their competitive advantage and  
the non-professionals who want to see the user base grow for the  
benefit of all.  Also tutorials and other tools provided by  
professionals seem to be a sort of advertising that might be lost if  
the docs were first class.

Don't get me wrong, I am very appreciative of the free and low cost  
tools and tutorials developed with much sweat and time by many on  
this list.  I also appreciate the help with questions on the list.  I  
just sense this reluctance by some --and for good reason.  A group  
effort to improve the situation will have a cost/reward ratio that is  
different and will require rethinking strategy for some.

I just want to lay this out on the table instead of leaving it half  
unsaid.

I other words, when writing a tutorial brings in business, traffic to  
the web site, reputation, accolades, etc. a lot of energy can go into  
making such contributions.  However, if a group wiki approach was  
used, would all the energy from the most knowledgeable users dry up?   
Maybe yes, maybe no.

I believe that an undertaking to improve the docs by the user  
community needs the most knowledgeable professionals to contribute.   
So we need to make sure that it is done in a way the still delivers  
much of the benefits to them of the present system.

So the question in my mind is not IF, but HOW to proceed.

Dennis


On Jul 25, 2005, at 8:37 PM, Chipp Walters wrote:

> Hmmm. I'm missing something. I honestly don't understand what  
> you're trying to say. Do you teach Transcript in a course? Is it  
> online? Or, is this all tongue-in-cheek? If it is I'm not sure I  
> get your point.
>
> Dennis Brown wrote:
>
>> Ok all you first graders,
>>
> <snip>
>
>
>> Why can't I teach you all at the same time instead of   
>> individually?  Well it is because I am so busy answering  
>> individual  questions I don't have any time left to organize all  
>> the information  I know into a course plan.
>>
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