[ZDP] Re: [Zope] The agony of the ZOPE Documentation

[Chris Withers]

ethan mindlace fremen wrote:
> See, I like the portals approach. My problem is that many areas of the
> ZDP portals are blank, despite the fact that documentation does exist
> (for example, installation has no info about installing in linux,
> despite the installation tutorial on zope.org).

I think the idea behind the portals is that they should be constructed
in such a way that if you go there and find nothing it should be easy
for you to 'fill in the blanks' when you do fidn some information.

I think this works better than automagical propogation which will never
work as well as people's common sense.

Where 'fill in the blanks' breaks down is in the situation where I have
some information and I want to know where to put it...
Should I create a new bit in the tree or is there a topic there already
that I just need to fill in? I think this is where ZDP's current
implementation falls over and it's one of the reasons why I haven't put
any content in yet... The interface, although it still needs overall
improvement, needs aprticular improvement in this area...

> True... it's my understanding that the DTML reference is undergoing
> revision, but I know no more than that.

I wish DC would actually communicate more with the community about the
documentation. You guys are great when it comes to the code and chatting
about it, but the documentation, Zope's one major failing, is never
mentioned and never discussed by people from DC.

I know Amos is probably hideously busy, but maybe he could take a mroe
active part in the discussions on ZDP, so we all know what's going on
and aren't duplicating effort...

> I see Zope.org as being the "library" of Zope, where all documentation
> and software packages reside.
> 
> I see Zope.net as being the "Discothèque" of Zope, where there are
> articles about zope in the world, #zope irc chat-channel and chat
> events, and other community-ish things.
> 
> Zope.com would be the "market square" of zope, kindof an expanded zope
> solutions provider section, as well as possibly some sourceXchange ish
> project, so people can find zope consultants when they need it.

I this is great and would sum it up with the C's:

o Code & Documentation - zope.org

o Community - zope.net

o Commercial - zope.com

> > I agree with Maik, we now have all the players at the same table, so
> > lets get this card game going so we can all be winners :-)
> 
> Sounds good to me.

Right, I'm going to rename and repurpose the ZDP Wiki I've got on
zope.org (check Wiki Central for the new name) because I think ZDP
limits it and, with the above model, zdp.zope.org will hopefully
disappear...

I'll mail details soon,

cheers,

Chris