The Documentation

[Peter Alcibiades]

It is clear to anyone who has read the documentation on other programming 
languages that Rev is very different in its approach.  There is one printed 
book:  Dan Shafer's.  There's an incomplete pdf which, the last time I 
looked, had not been extended for over a year, though the preface promises 
new material in the coming months.  Then there's the dictionary and the 
mailing list.

The question is what the target audience is and what the aims are for the 
language.

The competition is probably Python, Perl, Ruby, maybe Lua.  Were I Rev, I'd be 
looking at what is on offer for these languages, and would consider in the 
light of that and in the light of my ambitions, what sort of printed 
documentation is needed.  

There seems little doubt of two things, if you do this.  One is that if you 
want to stay in the niche, the current approach is fine.  Two is that if you 
want to be an alternative to these languages, the current approach will not 
cut it. 

The things I am thinking of are, on Python, the Lutz O'Reilly book, Hetland's 
book, or Dive into Python.  On Perl something like Minimal Perl or the 24 
hour Pierce book.  On Lua,  Jung and Brown, Beginning Lua Programming.  This 
is the sort of thing varying audiences contemplating Rev will use as their 
standard of comparison.  You need an account of what your response is, in 
terms of your objectives.  

Surely the current approach is only explicable in terms of a strategy which 
says, stay in the present niche?  Not that its a bad thing, of course.  Not 
that it is a mistaken strategy, not at all.  Just how it surely is?

Peter