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Index › Suggestions & Bugs › Website,  Documentation,  Book Bugs › Reference needs review. Syntax&Param mostly
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Reference needs review. Syntax&Param mostly (Read 1174 times)
Stefan Nowak
Reference needs review. Syntax&Param mostly
Sep 21st, 2008, 9:59pm  
Obervation:
While currently getting into Processing, I encountered various small mistakes in the reference pages.

Inquiry:
I kindly ask the responsible person(s) to systematically review the current documentation, and then to (just silently) update the documentation.

Rationale:
This is much less bureaucratic, than various users, who take notes as bugs appear to me, then nicely creating some well formatted (bulletin board markup language) posts, and then posting them into the right sections, and then a board discussion, and then the time it takes to create a reply, etc...


Already posted documentation mistakes:
In order to see that I am not a person who only complains, but also contributes, see some examples:
  • pixels[] reference page contains error
    http://processing.org/discourse/yabb_beta/YaBB.cgi?board=WebsiteBugs;action=display;num=1220354390;start=0#0
  • class reference page contains code mistake
    http://processing.org/discourse/yabb_beta/YaBB.cgi?board=WebsiteBugs;action=display;num=1221043467;start=0#0
  • "return" reference page contains error
    http://processing.org/discourse/yabb_beta/YaBB.cgi?board=WebsiteBugs;action=display;num=1222026058;start=0#0

After a few posts like this, I realised that the inquired method will likely work much better and more efficient. By the way: Big thanks to all Processing Developers!!!


I found the most inconsistencies here:
  • The Sections Name, Examples are mostly well done.
  • Description & Parameters are mostly quite satisfying, but sometimes a bit to minimal, and missing some information.
  • In the section Syntax I encountered the most mistakes, most often typos sometimes even relevant informations missing. Through the Examples & Descriptions and my general knowledge about programming I sometimes figured out, what it is likely supposed to mean/be, but sometimes not, and then I could only figure it out through code-testing/guessing.
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Re: Reference needs review. Syntax&Param mostl
Reply #1 - Sep 22nd, 2008, 2:36am  
Stefan,

That's not how things work around here. This project can only work as a collaborative effort. I really need help to get the bugs out of the reference. I'm currently spending my time adding to the reference (as carefully as I can), improving examples, getting interviews up and running, managing the exhibition, monitoring the board, working on tutorials, etc, etc.

Your contributions to date are very useful. Thank you.

Casey
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Stefan Nowak
Re: Reference needs review. Syntax&Param mostl
Reply #2 - Sep 22nd, 2008, 12:41pm  
Dear Casey!

I see.
I am willing to help.
How can we do it efficiently?

Currently:
I post to the forum, then a competent person (who are these by the way?) read it, then s/he does the correction, then gives an acknowledgment in the forum. That's cumbersome.

This is how it could work:
You give me instructions&permission how/to edit the reference directly.
  • In case I am 100% sure I will do the edit and the change directly goes online.
  • In case I have an idea, but I am not sure, I already prepost (is this possible in your web environment?) and the competent person dis/agrees by publishing or rejecting it.
  • In case I have absolutely no knowledge, I post it to the appropriate forum section, and the competent person will take action: update / or reject and giving a rationale in the forum.

Looking forward to your reply.

Stefan
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Re: Reference needs review. Syntax&Param mostl
Reply #3 - Sep 23rd, 2008, 1:58am  
Stefan,

The most efficient way to do this with the current Processing system is to put all of the corrections into one TXT file. I'll then go through the file and make the changes.  

Or, it can all go through the bugs database, but this would be tedious:
http://dev.processing.org/bugs/search.cgi

We don't have a blog-like publication management system. All of the reference files are in XML format. We have an engine that builds the HTML files from that format. I simply edit the XML files to make the corrections and then I rebuild the HTML.

Casey
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