Documentation and the future of XulPlanet
Aaron Andersen
think it's relevant to what we're try to do here.
The short of it is this: XulPlanet, as some of you may have noticed,
is having somewhat of an identity crisis at the moment. When we
started XulPlanet (back in 1999), we did it because there wasn't any
other place to get documentation on XUL and the related "platform"
technologies. Well, that was a long time ago, and things have changed
quite a bit in the mozilla documentation world. We now have devmo in
all its multilingual glory, with full-time documentation people on the
MoCo end and a vibrant community keeping things complete and up to
date.
Some of the most popular XulPlanet resources have since been copied
over to DevMo, the devmo versions of which are now more "official"
than the original XulPlanet copies, leaving us with an outdated mirror
that we don't have time to keep up to sync. (Both Neil and myself and
now doing XUL work professionally, which makes it slightly less
appealing as a hobby then it was when we were doing other things at at
work all day).
So the big question we're facing now is, where does this leave
XulPlanet? I certainly don't want to "compete" with devmo, since I
don't think we'd succeed anyway and there wouldn't be much of a point;
none of us have ever made a dime off of XulPlanet, and have on the
contrary spent nontrivial quantities of our own money to keep it
running over the years.
I have thought that, if XulPlanet is no longer needed, perhaps we
should shut it down completely and send everyone directly over to
devmo. On the other hand, several people said that that would be going
too far, and that we should leave XulPlanet up with content that
either is not or cannot exist on devmo. At least one person suggested
that we try to automatically mirror devmo the way several sites (such
as answers.com) do with wikipedia. I had a few people tell me that
they had a tutorial or sample code on a personal site or blog that
needed a new home that maybe XulPlanet could host.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Other then for sentimental reasons, is
there a good argument for keeping XulPlanet around when we have devmo?
What solution would most benefit mozilla and the developer community
as a whole?
Aaron
Brian King
> I'd like to get the mozpad community's ideas on this; I certainly
> think it's relevant to what we're try to do here.
>
>
> I have thought that, if XulPlanet is no longer needed, perhaps we
> should shut it down completely and send everyone directly over to
> devmo. On the other hand, several people said that that would be going
> too far, and that we should leave XulPlanet up with content that
> either is not or cannot exist on devmo. At least one person suggested
> that we try to automatically mirror devmo the way several sites (such
> as answers.com) do with wikipedia. I had a few people tell me that
> they had a tutorial or sample code on a personal site or blog that
> needed a new home that maybe XulPlanet could host.
>
> Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Other then for sentimental reasons, is
> there a good argument for keeping XulPlanet around when we have devmo?
> What solution would most benefit mozilla and the developer community
> as a whole?
How about shifting the focus away from documentation? One of the common
identifiers of the Mozilla Platform is XUL, and xulplanet would be a
good domain to use for showcasing Mozilla technologies in general.
I'm not sure if this this steps on the toes of mozpad.org, but since
that is currently a wiki then the focus could be different. As an
example, the map of the mozpad universe
(http://mozpad.org/doku.php?id=map_of_the_mozpad_universe) might better
exist on xulplanet, passed out with more information and perhaps more
information on each project. The wiki format does not really suit the
goal of showing off to potential consumers (and users) of the platform.
Of course some of the other documentation should stay on xulplanet, but
reorganised into separate section(s).
- Brian
Scott Wickham
> Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Other then for sentimental reasons, is
> there a good argument for keeping XulPlanet around when we have devmo?
> What solution would most benefit mozilla and the developer community
> as a whole?
>
> Aaron
the most useful part of xulplanet to me was the the tutorial.
http://xulplanet.com/tutorials/xultu/
tutorials and demo programs are always needed. Documentation in other
places
is almost always for the very experienced developer.
the #1 reason XUL doesn't rule all it barrier to entry.
Nicolas MONNET
> Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
Could you publish the scripts you used to generate the pages from the
source?
Xulplanet has been a great tool for us. Many thanks.
Matthew Gertner
and generated interface overviews) folded into Devmo, so that the latter
can be a "one stop shop" for all things XUL.
Myk Melez
> Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? Other then for sentimental reasons, is
> there a good argument for keeping XulPlanet around when we have devmo?
> What solution would most benefit mozilla and the developer community
> as a whole?
I agree with Matthew Gertner that it would make the most sense to fold
XulPlanet content into devmo and direct developers to devmo as a "one
stop shop" for XUL and Mozilla development docs.
XulPlanet has been a fantastic resource for a long time, but devmo seems
easier to maintain given its distributed editing model. We just need to
work out how to integrate generated docs like the XPCOM references into
devmo.
-myk
kim.st...@gmail.com
> identifiers of the Mozilla Platform is XUL, and xulplanet would be a
> good domain to use for showcasing Mozilla technologies in general.
I like Brian's idea. If all of the documentation on XULPlanet gets
moved to MDC, I think there is still a role for the site in helping to
evangelize XUL and the Mozilla platform. I also don't think this
steps on the toes of mozpad.org. I think the function of the
mozpad.org site is to serve as a place for the mozpad members to
coordinate on various efforts and is not necessarily intended for the
public.
If we wanted a public-facing advocacy site, then XULPlanet might be
the place to do that. We could expand the forum area to serve as a
place to discuss various XUL applications and also post information
about applications (like Brian mentions with the Map of the Mozpad
universe). This would also be a benefit since xulplanet.org has much
more public exposure than mozpad.org.
In terms of costs, we could also look in to free hosting options so
that it doesn't become a financial liability for Aaron and the others
who have done a great job running the site.
David
davidwboswell
D'oh! I just realized that my wife was logged in to Gmail when I had
posted this message. Although I'm sure she has strong opinions about
XUL issues as well, the previous post came from me and not her :)
David