On 11/16/2016 8:52 AM, Lisi Reisz wrote:
On Wednesday 16 November 2016 14:13:49 Richard Owlett wrote:There exist SOC <Summer of Code> projects to encourage/mentor fledgling programmers. Considering the state of documentation, esp man pages, why no SOD <Summer of Documentation> projects for potential tech writers.There is no obvious pay-off for Google - or anyone else with money. And it isn't fun.
I don't know how Google internally justifies sponsoring SOC projects.I can see their PR department seeing benefits to their corporate image. Their personnel department may see it as a pool of potential recruits. I know nothing of the quality of code produced by these projects, nor of its monetary value. None of the SOC projects I've seen mentioned in various fora have been of more than passing interest.
As to "fun", one man's purgatory may be another's nirvana {or points between}. The intended point of my second paragraph [which obviously wasn't made as nobody commented on it ;] was a sketch of how to attract technically oriented high school students to tech writing.
You could always make a start. Have you? This is, after all, open source. And the Wiki is, well, a Wiki. ;-)
I don't see myself as having the technical competence to create wiki content that would do more harm than good.
I do try to contribute by asking focused questions and when relevant draw on 50+ years of troubleshooting to document how I came to ask a question. Several here question whether I've achieved either.
LisiIn many areas, nerds are considered illiterate. I can see SOD projects as a vehicle to encourage technically oriented teens to hone their composition skills. Attempting to edit existing man pages might be a good starting point. It would obviously require mentors with an atypical mixture of skill sets. P.S. Apologies to J. Swift ;)