[ZDP] Spearheading the Zope Documentation

[Eron Lloyd]

Greetings, fellow writers, coders, zopers, and others. I have been
(quietly) following the threads for the last two months or so, thinking,
taking notes, and trying to pick at our documentation predicament. Now,
I'd like to throw out some of my own thoughts:

1.) It seems like many wheels are spinning in the mud. Many great ideas,
offers, and comments have been made, but not too many have gotten past
the mailing list. I understand that a lot of this is because of the
voluntary group effort nature of the project, but let us remember how
many successful SOFTWARE projects have grown coming from the same
background.

2.) We need more coordination. The new ZDP portal is swell, but nothing
beats solid leadership for a project of this size. Someone who will
direct the flow of energy, and always keep things on track.

3.) We need a solid vision. What are we trying to achieve? Maybe too
much? Maybe the wrong things?

4.) We need a permanent contact with someone doing docs at DC. There
seems to be some miscommunication. What ever happened to Pam?

5.) Soon, I believe, we shall see a few Zope-related books popping up.
DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED BY THIS. With the state of flux Zope is currently
in, much of the stuff will (probably) be outdated by the time it hits
mainstream.

6.) Zope has TONS of good content floating around in the different
mailing-list archives, How-tos, etc. Much of this is still relevant, and
only needs to be updated (a lot of the tag examples still use SSI
format, but then again, so does zope.org), and then snapped into the
main text.

7.) This is Zope's weakest point, and there is nothing the Zope
community could contribute more to the growth of our beloved system is
GOOD, COMPLETE documentation.

8.) I can go on and on, but I will stop here. All will say is that I
plan to write my a$$ off this summer, and come up with something that
will generate "ooh"s and "ahhh"s from the crowd.

It can be done. Attitude is everything. Let's stop talking and start
filling up the ZBook.

P.S. - good job with everything so far - your work has helped greatly.
We can only hope to continue what has already be contributed.

Eron