docWikis

[Timothy Miller]

Hi Marielle,

I visited your site, and bookmarked it. I am certainly sympathetic to 
your goals and philosophical position. Rev users generally seem 
sympathetic to the manufacturer -- wish it well, want it to succeed. 
Me too.

My initial reaction -- what's there is admirable. The documentation 
you have written is somewhat clearer and less terse than Rev's native 
documentation, with more examples. Of course the number of items and 
issues documented is relatively small. I didn't spend a lot of time 
exploring -- I might have overlooked something. I'm sorry you're 
disappointed with the overall reaction so far.

Beyond that, I wonder if initial visitors will be daunted by the task 
of re-writing Rev's native documentation and moving it to your wiki, 
while simultaneously improving and supplementing the native 
documentation. If Rev's native documentation can't be moved wholesale 
to a wiki, with its hyperlinks, "see also" links, and so on, intact, 
for the sake of wiki-type improving and supplementing, I fear too 
many potential wiki users will be too daunted, and it just won't 
catch on.

I hope I'm wrong, though.


Tim

Marielle wrote:

>Again we are back to the same problem. Revolution Company has 
>limited resources. Users on this list seems to be very resourceful. 
>Why always direct the complaints against revolution? Why not start 
>thinking about what *WE* users can do to improve this. Because we 
>paid for a license means we shouldn't do the service? What matters 
>most for you, the fact you paid for your license or the quality of 
>the service you could get if each one of us gave a hand, as a 
>function of his time, dedication, and level of skill?
>
>This page: 
>http://revolution.lexicall.org/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=RevolutionSnippetTips
>has been accessed 215 times. Numbers of persons who have taken the 
>time to update it other than me (nothing more than cut and paste 
>from a post on the list, 2 minutes of your time a week maximum): 0 
>(zero).
>
>I would have more resources at my fingertips if more of *you users 
>of this list ranting against the lack of good docs* decided to 
>invest a bit more of *your* time in the creation of a good 
>documentation.
>
>  The documentation is really excellent... comparing well if not 
>better than other documentation systems I have been using (Visual 
>Basic or Visual Basic for Applications, for instance). With other 
>languages, you can often find a book that make up for unclear 
>documentation, but this comes with an extra price tag. To improve 
>this documentation, there are two models: Extensive Collaboration 
>and a free service... Everybody trying to get more than he gives, 
>keeping everything he has developed for him/herself and a paying 
>service. Choose the model you want for the years to come in this 
>community... but if you choose the second, please spare me the rants 
>against the doc. Dreamcard is less than $100 and Macromedia Studio 8 
>costs $400. What you get for less than $100 is *extraordinary*.
>
>Marielle