[Mulgara-general] Finding documentation

[David Wood]

Hi Peter and Thomas,

Excellent, we'll wait then.  Thanks to both of you for responding.

Regards,
Dave


On 30 Jul2007, at 17:30, Peter Becker wrote:

> Hello Dave, hello Thomas,
>
> yes, the issue I was talking about was about finding the  
> documentation, not
> the actual content. The new paragraph should avoid that problem I  
> had of not
> finding it at all.
>
> Since I still haven't really gotten around to do much I can't tell  
> if there is
> all documentation I need, but I definitely see things to start  
> with. If I
> should miss something I'll ask questions here -- you can then sort  
> out the
> cases of RTFM from missing documentation ;-)
>
> Cheers,
>    Peter
>
>
> On Tuesday 31 July 2007 04:10:58 thomas wrote:
>> hi david, hi peter,
>>
>> as i understood it the problem was more finding the documentation
>> alltogether (not missing parts of it). i agree with peter that the  
>> link on
>> the left hand side is not very obvious and that it's also quite  
>> uncommon to
>> have two left hand side navigations. part of the problem was also  
>> that
>> there is a link to "documentation" at the top of the start page  
>> but that
>> link only pointed to a paragraph within the start page and that  
>> paragraph
>> again only contained a link to the wiki. that together with the  
>> rather
>> uncommon navigational structure could indeed lead to the  
>> assumption that
>> the wiki contains all the documentation (which would indeed be  
>> dramatic).
>> paul already changed the paragraph mentioned above. it now  
>> contains links
>> to the documentation on the webserver and in a locally installed  
>> instance
>> of the mulgara server. there is always a update of the layout in  
>> the making
>> and i will make sure that the icons onthe very left get a little more
>> obvious next time. thanks a lot, peter, for pointing this out!
>>
>> ciao
>> thomas
>>
>>
>>
>> --On 30. Juli 2007 13:39:15 -0400 David Wood  
>> <dwood at softwarememetics.com>
>>
>> wrote:
>>> Hi Peter,
>>>
>>> Thank you for your important contribution.  You are absolutely  
>>> correct -
>>> the documentation needs work.  The community includes a number of  
>>> people
>>> who have been using the system for long enough that we tend to  
>>> forget new
>>> users.  That is clearly our error and one that I will help to  
>>> remedy.
>>>
>>> What kind of documentation would you most like to see?  A "getting
>>> started" guide?  That seems like a fairly easy thing to create and
>>> something that would provide good value.  Any information on  
>>> material you
>>> would like to see will speed that process and make it more likely  
>>> to help
>>> others.  Thanks again.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Dave
>>>
>>> On 27 Jul2007, at 21:24, Peter Becker wrote:
>>>> Hello all,
>>>>
>>>> I don't want to sound too whingy, but I had a really hard time
>>>> finding the
>>>> documentation for Mulgara, since the "Documentation" link at the
>>>> top of
>>>> http://mulgara.org only points down on the main page, which links
>>>> to the
>>>> Wiki, which doesn't mention the documentation at docs.mulgara.org
>>>> until three
>>>> clicks in (or at least I couldn't find it faster). I didn't notice
>>>> the links
>>>> on the left hand side until the third time around since they are
>>>> very laid
>>>> back and I just didn't expect two left hand navigations. The first
>>>> time round
>>>> I actually went away and tried Jena instead -- I needed something
>>>> quickly for
>>>> some prototyping and didn't feel like hunting down documentation, I
>>>> was just
>>>> looking for a basic quick start document to start trying stuff.
>>>>
>>>> After two people talked me into checking out Mulgara again (still
>>>> prototyping,
>>>> so I still don't really care that much) I found that link, but I
>>>> think it is
>>>> very hard to notice. I actually asked my wife to point out all
>>>> things to do
>>>> on that page and she pointed to the two text-based navigations and
>>>> then
>>>> said "and maybe this", pointing to the graphical links on the far
>>>> left. At
>>>> least it doesn't seem to be just me having problems identifying
>>>> these links,
>>>> so I thought I mention it here. There might be more people turning
>>>> their back
>>>> on the project due to the perceived lack of documentation as I did
>>>> in the
>>>> first round.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>    Peter
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Mulgara-general mailing list
>>>> Mulgara-general at mulgara.org
>>>> http://mulgara.org/mailman/listinfo/mulgara-general
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Mulgara-general mailing list
>>> Mulgara-general at mulgara.org
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>>
>> mailto:thomas at stray.net
>> http://stray.net
>>
>> : accumulated wisdom
>>
>> . early optimization is the root of many evil [donald e. knuth]
>> . if you've got a hammer every problem looks like a nail
>> . the difference between theory and practice is always greater
>>   in practice than it is in theory
>
>