Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

Hi all,

We're planning a documentation hackefest in Barcelona as part of the
Barcelona weekend in December (2.5 short weeks away), and you are all
active in community documentation efforts (or have been in the past).

Anyone interested in attending for the documentation hackfest should
register ASAP indicating that you wish to attend so that we can gauge
numbers. We're looking forward to a productive session defining the
needs of developer documentation in Maemo, and working together to
improve the existing documentation as well over the weekend - maybe the
Intro pages for maemo.org?

Some people from Lionbridge, a company contracted by Nokia to work on docs, will be co-ordinating the developer docs workshop and they have some objectives that they would like to see us accomplish at the event.

Cheers,
Dave.

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

Something that this documentation workshop could kick off is the TOC of the Maemo 6 Developer Guide.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...eveloper_Guide is ok, but it can be done better in Harmattan. For instance, we will have different tools for application developers and platform developers, therefore it makes sense to have also a clear division between documentation of the platform itself, what can application developers do with it an then the documentation of the own developer tools.

The Harmattan SDK releases are approaching and it would be good to know what are the expectations and the best way to organize the draft documentation that will come with them.

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

I'm going to be there for this. Right now, I'm thinking about the 'tree' for the Maemo beginners' wiki, to make it fully 'average Joe' friendly.

Looking forward to looking at some of the new documents, too.

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

I've brought this up in a couple of threads in respect to user group meetups and larger events: what do we have in the way of Maemo whitepapers? It would be nice to have something well-formatted, with a consistent theme across a series (if more than one, as I would assume).

The same goes for glossy full-color flyers that can be distributed at such assemblies. I don't mind doing design work on the latter.

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

Hi,

I'm one of the people co-ordinating the Barcelona documentation event. Glad to see that you have already made good suggestions on the topics to be covered in Barcelona. Keep them coming!
And I agree, the event is a good opportunity for us to take a look at some of the existing documentation together and think about how it could be improved.

Mary and I are eager to receive your comments and improvement ideas concerning the existing Maemo documentation. We want to get a thorough picture of how the existing Maemo documentation meets the needs of readers as well as contributors.


Cheers,
Titta

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

Hi Titta,

(and welcome to t.m.o!)

You might want to look at this conversation we had about the Bugzilla. There were some useful concrete suggestions in there for making it more 'end-user friendly'. I feel we need to do the same with the 'maemo basics' or 'new users' materials: create documentation that doesn't assume so much. :)

Without dividing the community between techies and non-techies, we do need to have some stuff that is aimed at the user who picks up a maemo device just because it's a really good device, without knowing much about OSS etc. I do recognise that the technical experts also need documents that are technically clear, too.

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

Thanks, Kathy! Clarity and simplicity are definitely the cornerstones of any good technical documentation. Good documentation is to-the-point and gives the right amount to information - not too much but not too little, either.

One thing to remember is that many of the Maemo documentation readers are not native English speakers. Using clear and unambiguous language prevents misunderstandings and open up the content to a wider audience.

Even though our main focus in Barcelona will be on the technically oriented people, making the existing material more user-friendly would certainly benefit everyone.

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

I have just seen http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo-Barcelon.../Documentation

Great! Please have a look to the other subpages in order to follow some pattern (that now still doesn't exist) ;) Who coordinates, main topics, participants with links to their profiles, etc.

Can you please polish the Documentation entry at http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo-Barcelon...#Documentation following the example of the previous entries?

And finally, please help feeding the general agenda. Probably useful for yourselves to see when your sessions fit best: http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo-Barcelon...Weekend/Agenda

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

Hi,

By polish, you mean reduce to one sentence?

OK! Will do.

Dave.

Re: Documentation hackfest in Barcelona
 

Thanks, everyone, for a great weekend! We got some really good work done, too.

Sorry I didn't have time to say good bye to all of you.. Mary finally came and dragged me from Citilab to the airport. :)

Those of you who took pictures of our post-it notes - it would be great if you could send them to me?

Hope you got back home safely!

Titta